In a news conference this morning, Oregon State Geologist Vicki McConnell pointed out that tsunamis generated by earthquakes on the other side of the Pacific give Oregonians plenty of time to evacuate  – but a similar quake off the Oregon coast, which geologists believe is inevitable, might come with as little as 15 minutes’ warning.

Nonetheless, McConnell said, coastal response to today’s devastating Japanese earthquake provides communities and emergency preparedness officials with a valuable rehearsal for something worse. Generally, officials said, warnings and evacuation went well on the coast; in the few cases where automatic warning sirens failed to trigger, emergency officials were able to manually trigger them immediately.

McConnell’s agency, the Department Of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), has some great online resources for learning about, and preparing for, coastal earthquakes and tsunamis.