On Friday March 11, 2011 a 9.0 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami off the eastern coast of Japan, resulting in thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars in damage around the Pacific Rim. The tsunami first reached the California coast at approximately 7:30am on Friday, March 11th, with a wave height of up to eight feet, causing more than $70 million in damage and at least one death.
Source: NOAA/National Geophysical Data Center
This study describes the key public health emergency functions activated by local public health and emergency medical governmental agencies in response to the tsunami threat to the California coast. We also characterize local emergency management activities to put public health activities in the context of the overall response. Additionally, we describe how and when affected agencies became aware of the tsunami threat in California and identify challenges and lessons learned from the response.
We measured public health response activities using the CDC Public Health Preparedness Capabilities framework.
As a proxy measure of agency notification time, participants were asked to self-report when they first became aware of the tsunami threat in California and when they formally received notification of the threat based on their role in their organization or agency. Participants were also asked from what source and medium they first became aware of the threat and which sources their agency used to maintain situational awareness throughout the response.
The survey was reviewed by a practice-based Research Steering Committee, a group composed of state and local agency representatives from public health, emergency medical services, and hospitals. Additional modifications were made based on this feedback.
Organizational representatives were invited via email to participate in the web-based survey, which was created and administered via Qualtrics©. All survey recipients were provided a short description of the survey goals from the office of the Principal Investigator of Cal PREPARE, a CDC Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Survey recipients were asked to complete the survey or to forward the survey link to the person most knowledgeable of their agency’s response; thus, only one survey response should have been received from each agency. Survey data collection took place over the course of four weeks, beginning on August 25, 2011 and ending on November 10, 2011. Two email reminders were sent to invited participants in effort to promote higher response rates.
This research was approved by the Committee for Protection of Human Subjects at the University of California, Berkeley.
Responding Agencies
Non-Responding Agencies
LHDs
Local EMS
Local OESs
LHDs (n=9)
Local EMS
Local OESs (n=9)
636,783
753,197
458,614
399,347
401,762
753,197
$48,098
$50,818
$51,034
$51,163
$50,125
$50,063
Small
0%
9%
0%
11%
0%
11%
Medium
42%
27%
56%
56%
72%
33%
Large
58%
64%
44%
33%
28%
56%
Coastal
42%
55%
67%
78%
72%
56%
Southern
50%
45%
33%
22%
14%
33%
Inland
8%
0%
0%
0%
14%
11%
a Based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2000.
The most common functional roles of respondents were: agency administrator/director (50% of total), health officer/deputy health officer (32% of total), and emergency preparedness coordinator (21% of total). Two respondents served in more than one role (director/health officer; director/preparedness coordinator). The functional role of survey respondents did not systematically vary by agency type.
Based on respondents’ accounts, one death and two injuries were associated with the tsunami. One man was swept out to sea while photographing the event near the mouth of the Klamath River (in Northern California). Two men suffered internal injuries when they were thrown from their boat during the tsunami.
Note that damage points on the above map are not indicative of survey participants. Source: NOAA/National Geophysical Data Center
Respondents were also asked from what person or organization they first learned of the tsunami threat in California. The majority of respondents first learned of the threat from either the television news media (29%), from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) via its messages through the California Health Alert Network (25%), or the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA; 21%). Alerts from CDPH and Cal EMA were received via text messages, email, and telephone. Other respondents reported first learning about the threat from local OESs, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other local governmental officials (all cited by three or fewer respondents). While respondents from all agency types reported using the media and Cal EMA as an initial information source, only EMS and public health representatives cited CDPH as their initial source of information.
Eighteen respondents (representing nineteen agencies) indicated that they alerted other organizations or entities about the tsunami threat in California once they became aware of it, including all responding OES agencies and nearly half of responding local EMS agencies and LHDs. Among the agencies that alerted other organizations, local OES agencies were the most active. The nine OES agencies that participated reported notifying other government agencies (100%), the media (55%), non-governmental critical infrastructure (27%), healthcare providers and/or delivery systems (18%), universities (18%), community or faith-based organizations (18%), businesses (18%), and tribal entities (11%). Local EMS agencies and LHDs played a smaller role in notifying other agencies, most often notifying other government agencies as well as healthcare providers and/or delivery systems. Overall, other government agencies and healthcare providers and/or delivery systems were the types of organizations most often notified by responding agencies.
Thirteen operational areas reported activating their County Emergency Operations Center (EOC), with 62% of these operational areas also reporting the activation of one or more City EOCs. Three OES agencies, one local EMS agency, and three LHDs also reported activating their Departmental Operations Centers (DOC); all seven organizations were located in operational areas where the EOC was activated.
When prompted for a description of the impact of information sharing and communications challenges, nearly half of these respondents reported that their agency had to divert staff from other tasks to handle communications functions. Other respondents reported that their agency had to make decisions without the most current information available, were unable to send or receive timely information, or had to send or receive the same information multiple times (approximately 20% each). An equal number of respondents indicated there were no consequences as a result of communications challenges.
At the conclusion of the survey, respondents were given the opportunity to relate lessons learned from their experience responding to the tsunami threat. Half of respondents offered comments regarding lessons learned. The topic of communications was cited repeatedly, as “communication with partner agencies” was mentioned in 40% of responses and “communication with the media” and “general communication issues” were each mentioned in 20% of the lessons learned. One respondent noted,
“
“Spanish language communications” was also cited (13%). Other themes included “evacuation” (20%) and “department or emergency operations center issues” (13%).
In addition to lessons learned, respondents were also given the opportunity to share what went well in their organization’s response to the tsunami threat. Half of respondents chose to share such lessons. Of those responses, 60% cited best practices related to “communication with partner agencies”, while “planning” and “alert systems” were each mentioned in 20% of best practices. “Evacuation” was discussed in 13% of responses. One respondent reported that there was “great interaction at the EOC between policy-makers, police, fire, health and emergency personnel”, while another explained that, “many regular updates from our OA [Operational Area] with a NOAA representative were crucial for decision making situational awareness.”
Over the past decade, the importance of public health involvement in emergency response has been increasingly recognized.
In response to the tsunami threat in California, we found that emergency management agencies assumed a lead role in the local response efforts. Emergency management representatives reported that their agency was responsible for key activities, including information management, emergency operations coordination, and evacuation activities. While they did not play a lead role, public health and emergency medical services agencies also participated in information management and emergency operations coordination activities. Additionally, these agencies uniquely contributed to public health emergency response functions. Specifically, public health agencies activated surveillance and epidemiology, environmental health, and mental health and psychological support functions. Both public health and emergency medical services agencies also reported participating in mass care and/or the management and distribution of medical materials. If the response to the recent tsunami is any indication, these support activities can be anticipated in planning for future events with similar characteristics to the tsunami threat.
A second research aim was to examine how and when these agencies became aware of the tsunami threat in California. On average, we found that local OES agencies in California became aware of the tsunami threat earlier than their public health and EMS counterparts, and that public health and traditional emergency responders relied on different sources of information for initial notification and maintenance of situational awareness. The average time when respondents were first alerted to the threat through formal channels was approximately 2:30am on Friday March 11th, approximately 4.5 hours after the earthquake in Japan. This time to notification poses a challenge to meeting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s expectation of developing an initial communications strategy in collaboration with interagency partners within 90 minutes of an incident, as is outlined in the
This fact, coupled with the varying notification times across agency types, suggests that a practice of cross-notification between agencies at the state and local level might be considered as a way to reduce the delay in notification times that, in this instance, some public health agencies experienced. Additionally, because many respondents initially learned about the incident through the media rather than through formal communication channels, governmental response organizations might consider developing the capability to alert and recall their personnel through the TV and radio-based Emergency Alert Systems (EAS) during major events, providing a communication redundancy in case primary alerting and recall methods have failed.
In the absence of well-defined, universally-accepted performance measures for public health emergency response, we limited our study to characterizing response capabilities in terms of the number and type activated by each agency, and on a qualitative level, asked participants to describe the most significant challenges and lessons-learned. Additional benchmarks for performance would provide greater opportunities for learning and improvement.
Another limitation to our approach is that the survey instrument did not address the concern over radiation exposure in the United States that was raised by radiation leaks at the heavily damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. There was significant public concern about the potential for radiation exposure in California, an issue that was addressed by communications from California Department of Public Health in conjunction with the California Emergency Management Agency.
The systematic study of real emergency events has been noted as a gap in the public health preparedness literature. This research characterizes the public health and medical response to the tsunami threat in California following the earthquake in Japan, specifically focusing on two commonly cited areas for improvement: information sharing and defining organizational roles and responsibilities. In response to the tsunami threat in California, we found that emergency management agencies assumed a lead role in the local response efforts. While public health and medical agencies played a supporting role in the response, they uniquely contributed to a number of specific activities. If the response to the recent tsunami is any indication, these support activities can be anticipated in planning for future events with similar characteristics to the tsunami threat. Additionally, we found differences in organizational notification times and sources of notification and situational awareness, suggesting possible areas for future preparedness improvements.
* Two respondents indicated that they represented two counties and two others noted that their response represented both public health and EMS agency interests for their jurisdiction. These survey responses were counted for each agency and county, as self-reported. As a result, we found one duplicate response. In this case, we chose to include only the response corresponding to the link designated for that organization and operational area.
§ Respondents who could not recall the time at which they first became aware of the threat (n=3) and when they were first formally notified (n=4) were omitted from calculating the average notification time.
? Percentages were calculated among those who reported any communications challenge.
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
JH, MP and TA conceived of the study and collaborated in the study design. JH and MP coordinated and implemented study recruitment and data collection. JH, MP and TA developed the data collection tools. All authors participated in the data analysis and interpretation, and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
The authors would like to acknowledge all of the individuals who participated in the 2011 Tsunami Threat in California survey. The authors would also like to thank the following research partners, who are members of the EXLAB Research Steering Committee, and who helped to develop the project’s research objectives, study design and implementation, and interpret study results: California Department of Public Health, California Emergency Management Agency, California EMS Authority, California Health and Human Services Agency, California Conference of Local Health Officers, County Health Executives Association of California, California Hospital Association, and the EMS Administrators Association of California. We would also like to acknowledge Dr. Wayne Enanoria for his review of survey materials, Mark D. Hunter for assistance in preparing the California tsunami damage map, and extend our gratitude to other Cal PREPARE staff who provided additional administrative and logistical project support.
The survey instrument described in this study can be accessed in the following location: https://www.calprepare.com/project4resources.