Category Archives: videos

Tsunami preparedness brochure available online

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Three Things You Need to Know About Tsunamis“Three Things You Need to Know About Tsunamis,” a new, easy-to-use brochure designed for Oregon coast residents and visitors, is available online from Oregon Sea Grant.

Written by Patrick Corcoran, Sea Grant Extension’s coastal hazards specialist, the handy,  printable brochure covers three essential facts about preparing for a tsunami:

  • The difference between local and distant tsunamis, and what that means to people trying to escape the potentially devastating inundation
  • Which coastal areas are likely to be unsafe should a tsunami strike
  • What people can do in advance to be prepared

Marine scientists say the Oregon Coast is overdue for the sort of high-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami that struck Japan in March. Even if  “the Big One” doesn’t strike, many coastal areas are vulnerable to tsunamis generated by distant quakes in other parts of the Pacific Rim.

Corcoran, based in Astoria, works with coastal communities and state and federal agencies to increase public awareness of the risks, and make people better prepared to deal with disaster when it strikes.

The new brochure carries the same message as his community talks and a previously released Sea Grant video on the subject: It’s not a matter of “if,” but “when.”

The largest earthquakes on earth happen along the Cascadia subduction zone, at regular geologic intervals.” As Corcoran writes, “The last Big One was in 1700 AD. Given historic averages, we are about due. We need to prepare for this inevitability.”

Designed by Sea Grant artist Patricia Andersson, the new brochure is intended for wide distribution. Coastal families can use them, along with maps of local evacuation routes, to develop their own tsunami preparedness and evacuation plans. Motels, visitor attractions and other coastal businesses can make them available to visitors. And local emergency preparedness groups can use them as guides for community presentations.

The brochure is available for free download from Oregon Sea Grant, both as a full-color, printable .pdf and in an accessible plain-text version.

Information about single-copy and bulk orders of the brochure will be added soon to the Sea Grant Web site. In the meantime, queries can be sent to sea.grant.communications@oregonstate.edu

More information: Watch the three-minute video, The Three Things You Need To Know (Flash required)

Oregon Sea Grant video wins Gold Award

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Oregon Sea Grant’s video Preparing for Coastal Climate Change: What Oregonians Are Asking has won a Gold Award in the Video/Educational category of the 2011 Hermes Creative Awards.

According to Hermes, there were about 4,400 entries from throughout the U.S. and several other countries in this year’s competition, with about 19 percent receiving Gold Awards. The Gold Award is presented to “those entries judged to exceed the high standards of the industry norm.”

Preparing for Coastal Climate Change was produced by Joe Cone, assistant director of Oregon Sea Grant, and edited by Stevon Roberts; the jacket and label were designed by Patricia Andersson. The video was supported in part by a grant from the NOAA Climate Program Office.

Copies of the video are available for $3 each plus shipping and handling from Oregon Sea Grant, 541-737-4849; or through Oregon Sea Grant’s e-commerce site at marketplace.oregonstate.edu. You may also view excerpts of the video on Sea Grant’s Web site.

Here’s the introduction:

Oregon Sea Grant has reduced the price of one of its most popular DVDs

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We’ve reduced the price of one of our most popular DVDs. The Watersheds and Salmon Collection DVD is now priced at $12.95 (was $29.95) plus shipping and handling. It contains the following four videos:

Life Cycle of the Salmon (5 minutes)
Governor Kitzhaber Interview (9 minutes)
The Return of the Salmon (33 minutes)
Salmon: Why Bother? (12 minutes)

You may purchase Watersheds and Salmon Collection DVD online from Oregon Sea Grant.

Pacific Tsunami Reminds Oregon to be Prepared

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Tsunami alerts were triggered up and down the Oregon Coast this morning, following a deadly 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan.  Reverse 911 calls and emergency sirens alerted Oregon coastal residents to potentially dangerous tsunami waves created by the distant quake, and the National Weather Service has issued a tsunami advisory.  Oregon Sea Grant features a short film on tsunami preparedness: “Reaching Higher Ground: The 3 Things You Need to Know” (3:09).

To learn more about what causes a tsunami, check out our longer film, “Reaching Higher Ground” (14:02).

Oregon’s wave expertise attracts energy startup

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A Texas company with a novel approach to generating electricity from ocean waves is testing its devices at OSU’s Hinsdale Wave Research Lab, with an eye toward full-scale ocean testing in the future.

Texas-based Neptune Wave Energy was drawn to Oregon by the expertise and scientific resources of the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, a joint effort of OSU and Washington State University.

Oregon Sea Grant, which helped fund early proof-of-concept research on wave-generated energy and is currently looking at the human dimensions of wave energy, is among the local partners in the Center, which is working on establishing an off-shore testing site near Newport that could be used by Neptune and other companies.

Read the whole story from Sustainable Business Oregon.

Learn more about Oregon Sea Grant’s efforts in wave energy.

Video report from KGW TV:

OSG experts featured on invasive species program

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Oregon Sea Grant’s Sam Chan and Tania Siemens are featured in “Crayfish Invasion,” a recent episode of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s award-winning Oregon Field Guide program.

First aired on Feb. 17, the episode recounts how innocent elementary-school science projects have brought highly invasive crayfish into Oregon’s rivers and streams. Shipped to teachers for biology classes and then “set free” by well-meaning children or teachers, the animals spread quickly in the wild, out-competing native species. According to the series, shipments of live classroom specimens violates state wildlife laws but state authorities have chosen not to aggressively enforce the ban.

Chan, Oregon Sea Grant’s invasive species expert, and research assistant Siemens have been working with Oregon teachers to increase awareness of invasive species and enlist them and their classrooms in the fight to halt the spread of invaders in the marine environment. With the help of k-12 teachers and students, they are developing teacher toolkits with lesson plans, activities and other resources for teaching young people about the subject.

View video on the Oregon Field Guide site.

NOAA PNW seminar videos now online

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How much will it snow?  What are we learning about ocean acidification? What would happen if a big oil spill hit Puget Sound? These and other topics were discussed by top scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the fall 2010 Seattle lecture series, “NOAA Science in the Pacific Northwest.”

The five hour-long seminars were videotaped and are now available online, courtesy of the agency’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

Speakers include Will Stelle, NW regional administrator for the NOAA Fisheries Service; National Weather Service meteorologist Brad Colman, Bill Douros,  director of the National Marine Sanctuaries West Coast Region, and  NOAA research oceanographer Simone Alim.

NOAA’s history in the Pacific Northwest goes back almost 200 years. NOAA’s predecessor agencies have surveyed waters, forecast the weather, and managed fisheries in the Pacific Northwest since the 1800s.

As Kitzhaber is sworn in, a look back

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The last time John Kitzhaber was Oregon’s governor, he made a major policy address at Oregon State University in January 2000, on the “Oregon Approach to Environmental Problems.”

Now, with Kitzhaber returning for a new four-year term, his reflections  on the environment and politics and on salmon recovery 11 years ago may have renewed interest. The 30-minute speech, introduced by then-OSU President Paul Risser and produced by Oregon Sea Grant as part of the John Byrne lecture series:

New video: Preparing for Coastal Climate Change

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Climate change carries with it both risk and uncertainty, which makes it a challenge to discuss and an even greater challenge to prepare for. Oregon Sea Grant has joined the climate conversation by listening to coastal residents and trying to address their most pressing questions, with the assistance of topical experts.

Questions addressed by Preparing for Coastal Climate Change include:
• What’s the difference between weather and climate?
• What tools are used?
• How can scientists make claims about what the climate will be like 100 years from now if they can’t always reliably predict the weather just a few days from now?
• How is climate change related to storms, El Niño, and rising sea levels?
• What are some likely erosion effects we can expect to see as a result of these changes?
• What do “dead zones” have to do with climate change?
• How might increased levels of carbon dioxide affect sea life?
• How will storms and flooding affect the landscape in the coming years?
• What is government’s role in helping coastal communities prepare for and respond to climate change?
• What provisions are there for shoreline protective structures?

For additional resources about the changing climate, its local effects, and other coastal issues, visit seagrant.oregonstate.edu

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New video showcases Cummins Creek Wilderness

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Cummins Creek on the central Oregon coast is perhaps easy to miss. Where it enters into the ocean about three miles south of Yachats, it’s just a modest stream. But those who know it consider it a hidden gem, as Congress recognized in 1984 by protecting the forest that surrounds the creek in order to “preserve in a wilderness state the last remaining virgin stands of Sitka spruce, western hemlock, and Douglas fir in Oregon’s coastal lands.”

This short video highlights not only the beauty of the place but the role of the Sitka spruce forests in both Oregon history and environmental understanding.

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