Get People Talking: Sharing Tsunami Science Beyond the Web

The SAFRR Tsunami Scenario, a collaborative product between the USGS, NOAA, the California Geological Survey, Cal OES and other agencies and institutions, modeled the potential implications of a plausible tsunami caused by a hypothetical magnitude 9.1 earthquake off the Alaskan Peninsula. A multi-disciplinary team of researchers and practitioners looked at what such an event could mean to the coastal residents, visitors, infrastructure, economy, and environment in California. The intended users were those responsible for making mitigation decisions before and those who need to make rapid decisions during future tsunamis. The Tsunami Scenario process was evaluated by the University of Colorado's Natural Hazards Center; it was the first time that a USGS scenario of that scale was formally and systematically evaluated by an external party. The scenario was published as a USGS Open-File Report (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2013/1170/) and as a fact sheet. The report's website received over 1 million hits in the first year, demonstrating that the project received a great deal of attention. To make sure the information was accessible to the key users, we also held a series of regional workshops. These workshops brought together project scientists with emergency managers, maritime authorities, first responders, elected officials and staffers, the business sector, state agencies, local media, scientific partners, and special districts such as utilities. Each workshop had about 10 SAFRR project participants and an audience of about 40-100 potential users. The half-day workshops began with presentations on the scenario results and also included significant time for facilitated discussions to identify practical problems and propose solutions to mitigate the hazards. Two of the key lessons learned included: a) recognizing the value of having scenario developers personally present the scenario to user groups and b) stimulating dialogue among the practitioners to solve problems.