 As the sun begins to peek through the morning fog, the water is calm in and around Eureka, California. Boats are secure in their slips and wildlife casually poke around for breakfast. But life on the Pacific Coast comes with an undercurrent of danger. Especially if the people here aren't prepared. We need to understand where the water could potentially go in order to build a plan around that for potentially evacuating people who may be in harm's way. The water Kevin Miller is talking about would come from a potential tsunami and that's why the National Weather Service here in Eureka along with its partner agencies are conducting their annual tsunami communications exercise. That kind of tests that last mile of how the information gets to the public on the coast should there be a tsunami coming our way. Miller is the tsunami program lead for the California Office of Emergency Services. As such he's also the incident commander for this exercise. The players are gathered here at the Weather Service and at various points along the California coast in Del Norte, Humboldt and Mendocino counties. All partner agencies from federal, state, local and tribal governments as well as educational institutions and the media communicate with conference calls. At 11 a.m. the Weather Service will sound the tsunami alarm and activate the drill using live codes that indicate an actual tsunami is on the way. The reason for using the live tsunami codes is to make sure that the entire system including all the automated aspects of the notification system will work as intended for a real tsunami emergency. So they have to treat it as the real deal from the people and the planning outreach and education to computers and the equipment. Something as simple as a corroded connector that we were able to find through this test and then work with worked with our partner agencies and get those things fixed. So it certainly has accomplished that goal of making sure the entire tsunami warning system works properly. And because of that communities and their citizens in government have to know that it's only a test. I mean, we really were all committed to making sure that everyone understands what's happening. Dr. Lori Dangler is a geology professor at Humboldt State University and one of California's foremost experts on tsunamis and natural hazard mitigation. An active participant in the exercise. Dr. Dangler says there's always the possibility of the public's misinterpretation of the drill for the real thing. It was also a huge motivation to make sure that we really got the education message out there. Alarm sounding. It's 11 a.m. The alarms are sounded. Repeat. This is only a test. The message is broadcast to all coastal communities in Spanish to the message is also announced to people along waterfronts by planes flown by the civil air patrol. This is a public address system. This is what would actually happen if there were a real tsunami warning. It is a critical communications test to ensure the safety of all in the path of waves with the potential of destroying entire towns. The sleeper benefit of the test was the preparedness activity leading up to it. I think it really strengthened everything about the technical side of the warning system and the human side, which is sometimes just as important. I hope that we are all improving our educational message that we're learning to listen. We're learning to process information. We're learning to incorporate that sense of the structure of the world in our hazards in a rational logical way that will make us all much more prepared for the next inevitable disaster. Cal OES logo Governor's Office of Emergency Services for more information Cal OES.ca.gov