Monday, October 14, 2013
What time is it? Tsunami o'clock!
The western part of Wash will be holding a tsunami practice drill at 10:17 AM on 10/17 (Thursday). Local radio news mentioned this, even though it's not strictly relevant to us, and included a clip of the tsunami siren.
The siren is a Westminster chime! It's the most familiar two segments of the chime, technically speaking parts 4 and 5 of the pattern.
If you weren't aware of this, what would you think? "Oh, there's the half-hour. Must be 10:30. No, wait, my clock says 10:17. Better set it to 10:30 since the church clock is usuaTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP! CRASH! SPLASH! GLUB GLUB GLUB"
A long video on the Shakeout.org site gives clear instructions for handling a quake, with good explanations of the reasons.... but the recommendation is only valid for people working in a downtown area with skyscraper-type buildings that can drop cornices or windows. It urges you to stay inside a building and find cover. In a residential area, correct advice is the exact opposite, but the clip doesn't say this. Houses can fall. Sky can't fall. Get outside.
Later: Aha. The Westminster is one of the patterns available on the standard 'EOWS' sirens, and it's specifically meant to be used for benign testing, as in "Just making some noise, folks. Don't get excited." Having a distinct testing sound is an excellent idea, but the news piece didn't mention this.
¶ 6:58 AM 
