Seldovia Village Tribe became the first federally recognized Alaska Native tribe to get its TsunamiReady certification, according to a press release from the tribe on July 9.
This comes from the National Weather Service and shows that a given community has a plan in place if a tsunami hits. It includes preparation, mitigation and response steps. These range from updating maps that show areas that would be hit by a tsunami to giving community presentations on what to do during a natural disaster.
There are 13 other communities in the state with this certification, including Homer and Seward.
Aviva Braun is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist for the National Weather Service. She said the certification prepares communities well for a tsunami.
“The benefits are really community-based in that they have everything they need to mitigate ahead of events, prepare for an event ahead of time, so that when the event occurs, they have everything in place and have practiced it and and talk that through, so that it becomes second nature during the event,” she said.
Seldovia Village is the first Alaska Native tribe to get certified, even though the program has been in place for over 20 years. While Braun can’t speak to why this is the case, she says the extensive application process can be challenging for communities to complete.
“It does take time and it takes stability within the community and it takes monetary support and sometimes these can act as barriers to some of our tribal communities or tribal nations,” she said.
Mark Ball is the Tribal Emergency Manager with SVT. He said they already did a lot of the work to complete the extensive application, which made the process easier for them.
“Becoming tsunami ready is not a heavy lift, but it does take time commitment and community involvement to be successful,” he said.
Braun says she is working with several Alaska Native communities to get certified, including Port Graham on the southern Kenai Peninsula. She has also worked with people in Ouzinkie for two years, and expects their application to be completed soon.
Ball did coordinate with the City of Seldovia on parts of the application, but Seldovia Village is the community that applied for and ultimately received the certification.
Ball says there are two main communities in the area that would need to evacuate in the case of a tsunami. People in tsunami zones in the City of Seldovia would evacuate to Susan B. English School, and people on MacDonald Spit should go to Jakolof Bay Road.
