This Is Not A Test: Tsunami Safety in the Bay Area

One morning this past January, many San Franciscans woke up to something startling: a tsunami watch, issued in the wake of a 7.9 earthquake off the coast of Alaska. Ultimately, the watch was canceled, but it left a lot of people wondering: In a city surrounded on three sides by water, what happens when a tsunami strikes? Reporter Zoë Ferrigno has the answer.

To accompany this piece, we’ve compiled a list of services and sites you can use to stay up to date about tsunami news, information, and warnings in the Bay Area.

If you’re a listener in San Francisco and you want to receive updates about earthquakes, tsunamis, and other hazards, you can sign up for text message notices from AlertSF by texting your zip code to 888-777. You can also stay in the know by following the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management on Twitter (@SF_emergency) or online.

For those in Berkeley, Oakland, and other parts of Alameda County, you can subscribe to emergency notifications through AC Alert here. Stay up to date on Twitter by following @AlamedaCounty.

You can learn more about the Tsunami Warning Center here. And if you’d like to check out the tsunami simulations by Steven Ward mentioned in the piece, visit his site.