The panelists covered a range of topics, which included an introduction to earthquake and tsunami hazards in Washington, tsunami modeling, new tsunami maps created by the Washington Department of Natural Resources, insight from using tsunami hazards scenarios in community planning in Aberdeen and Neah Bay, and risk and hazards communication.



As a follow up to the presentation, the panelists graciously offered to answer a range of questions that were submitted by and voted on by the attending CHRN members. Below are the five questions that were voted the most relevant or interesting to the members.



1. What can we learn from Japan about coastal community recovery after a subduction zone earthquake? In particular, are there abandoned zones that are subsided?

Carrie– I recently took some time to read about the post-earthquake and tsunami recovery, which I did not know very much about. I had seen reports that characterized the recovery as both remarkably quick, and also slow and still underway. I sent an email to Dr. Lori Dengler, emeritus professor from Humboldt State University, who has done a lot of outreach work on tsunami hazards, and also participated in post-2011-tsunami surveys in Japan, to ask for further information, and here is her response:

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“Recovery in Japan has been complex and varies from community to community. Every community has changed its land use policies as a result of the tsunami – subsidence is only a small part of the equation. I know most about what happened in Rikuzentakata in Iwate prefecture but I expect other cities have had similar experiences.

All of these cities and communities have permanently lost population. Rikuzentakata had about 24,000 people before and is at about 16,000 now. The city and surroundings have been completely rezoned. No residences are within the inundation zone. In order to make land available for homes, they cut off the tops of mountains creating flat areas at high elevation to build homes. The residue from the mountain and hill tops has been used to fill and raise the ground https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/07/national/tsunami-hit-rikuzentakata-rebuilding-high-ground-hoping-thrive-anew/#.WxmxOunT_TM The new business center of the town is being built on this raised ground. The land is still within the 2011 inundation area, but less vulnerable and close enough to higher ground [making evacuation out of the area easier]. Lower areas are reserved for the memorial park and for farmland. The area was not much of a farming center before and even less so now.