Politics & Government

In Wake of Tsunami Scare, Officials Focus on Lessons Learned

City, police and school district examine why Watsonville residents fled en mass.

A week ago today, Watsonville was a ghost town.

Early-morning calls from fearful relatives and TV news reports that a massive wall of water born of the 9.0-magnitude Japan earthquake would drown the city spurred .

Families packed up in the darkness, stopped at corner grocery stores for food and hit up ATMs on their way out of town. In the rush, a few even fought for gas pumps. The refugees camped out at the summit of Hecker Pass on Highway 152, drove into Gilroy and Hollister or parked at the top of Highway 17.

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"They were trying to get to higher ground," said Watsonville police Sgt. Saul Gonzalez. "They thought it was going to flood and be just as bad as Japan."

But no wave struck Watsonville, five miles inland from the Monterey Bay. The hardest-hit area in the region occurred in the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor, which sustained more than $17 million is damage to docks, other infrastructure and boats.

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In the aftermath of the panic, officials from the city of Watsonville, the police department and the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, which saw just 35-45 percent of its students attend class March 11, are re-examining how the tsunami scare was handled.

"It was good practice for us," Gonzalez said, explaining that emergency responders were able to see how mass evacuations would play out on city streets, at gas stations and at banks. "I think the benefit was you start thinking about it, you get prepared for natural disasters."

Much of the tsunami fear can be linked back to news reports, police and school district officials said.

"The Spanish media kind of freaked everybody out," Gonzalez said, referring to TV stations' Telemundo and Univision. "... They were giving really inaccurate reports."

Gonzalez said some longtime Watsonville residents also panicked, because they remember the devastation of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which flattened the city, or the flooding a decade ago that left Bridge Street underwater, broke the Pajaro River levee on the Pajaro side and inundated cropland.

"I think it was a wake-up call for the whole county," Gonzalez said. "Everybody was unprepared for this."

At the Santa Cruz Regional 9-1-1 Center, which handles most of the emergency calls for the entire county, close to 1,000 people called in between 5-8 a.m. March 11, asking what they should do, according to Scotty Douglass, general manager of the center.

Normally, dispatchers field that number of calls in an entire day.

"It was just remarkable," Douglass said, adding that the morning hours typically are the slowest for the center and when staffing is at its lowest.

The Pajaro Valley Unified School District called families at home to inform parents the district was fully open and to urge them to send their kids to school, but some schools had just 10 percent of students show up for class, according to Brett McFadden, the district's chief business officer.

However, the already cash-strapped school district will not lose any state funding, despite the overwhelming absentee rate on March 11, McFadden said.

State education funds are doled out through a formula based on the school district's average daily population, not the actual number of students enrolled—basically, kids have to go to class to get the state money. The tsunami scare could have cost the school district thousands in funding; however, it will be able to get a waiver because of the unusual circumstances, McFadden said.

The waivers were used during the Southern California wildfires two years ago and, 20 years back, when the Rodney King riots emptied Los Angeles schools. PVUSD will use March 10 enrollment figures for state funding purposes.

"There's no loss for us," McFadden said. "If some sort of event, act of God, Mother Nature occurs, we're allowed to do this."

The school district followed its protocols, but McFadden said officials will double-check school sites to make sure they're prepared with emergency supplies should a disaster occur. Schools often are used as evacuation centers during those situations.

And police plan to work more closely with the media—especially the Spanish channels—in the future, Gonzalez said. Watsonville is 81 percent Latino, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures, released earlier this month. A large portion of the population turns to Spanish-language media for information.

Making sure the message is interpreted correctly will be a priority.

"We need to accurately vete the translations," Watsonville Fire Chief Mark Bisbee said, explaining that communication between city officials and local media also needs to improve. "They're part of the emergency broadcast system."

Douglass, from the 9-1-1 center, also encouraged people to register their cell phones with emergency dispatchers so they will receive automated calls should their be an evacuation in their neighborhood.

The free service, available on the center's website, usually nets about 900 new users every quarter. But, so far this month, 900 people have registered their phone numbers, including 600 on March 11 alone.

Also, there will be a on Monday in Santa Cruz.

"There's positives to be gleaned from this," Bisbee said. "No one was hurt."


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