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Showing posts from January, 2013

How the Failure To Issue an Effective Ocean Tsunami Warning May Help Prepare the Crisis Communications Response to the Next California River Flood

Some coincidences shouldn’t be ignored.             “The Impossible,” a movie on one family’s harrowing experience during and after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, opened in Sacramento theaters on January 4. An earthquake near Alaska a few hours later that evening triggered a tsunami warning for nearby coastal regions. And running in the background since at least November have been media reminders of Sacramento’s extraordinary vulnerability to flooding, which a Sacramento Bee story described as “the greatest flood risk of any major urban area in America." If there’s a thread linking ocean tsunamis and river floods, now’s the time to find it. Lessons learned from the 2004 tsunami could help Sacramento prepare for floods that may arrive this Spring. A key component of any disaster preparedness plan is communications – knowing well in advance how and when officials will alert populations to a threat or actual disaster. The key dramatic moment early in