Category: Effect of Tohoku Tsunami in CA

The Clearinghouse has activated a low-level virtual Clearinghouse in response to the March 28, M5.1 La Habra EQ in Southern California. As part of this activation, SpotOnResponse, is a situational awareness tool that helps researchers in the field communicate with the Clearinghouse and first responders, is also activated. The SpotOnResponse map below contains data and observations related to the March 28, M5.1 La Habra EQ in Southern California. Scroll down for more information about how to get started with SpotOnResponse. The map functionality is still a work-in-progress–if you have problems using SpotOnResponse, please send a message to californiaeqclearinghouse@eeri.org.

Getting Started with SpotOnResponse

SpotOnResponse is a web based application and will run on any web browser. There may be slight differences in appearance due to each browser. (The screenshots below are from Google Chrome)

This overview is broken down into three sections. Use the links below to jump to the desired section.
Logging In
Area of Interest and Setting Location
Creating a point of action or Responding to an Incident

Logging In

The login page (https://app.spotonresponse.com) is shown below. If you already have a username and password that you used in the last Clearinghouse ShakeOut exercise, now would be the time to login. If you do not have one yet, click “Click here to register for access” to create an account. You will be prompted to enter a project code, please enter userClearHouse, then click “Check Code” to proceed to fill out your user information.

There are a few terms that need to be defined:

• Area of Interest – the area around the user where Incidents will be shown
• Incident – an event/situation that a user feels should be investigated or brought to attention
• Update – for any Incident, additional information or comments can be associated with the Incident

Once logged in, the first page will be the listing page. This is the main page for SpotOnResponse. There are a few things to point out on this page:
Each number corresponds with the number on the figure above.

1. Layers – This button controls what you see on the map. You can toggle to see team members in the area, polygons (shake maps, etc), Incidents, Alerts, Updates, Traffic, Weather, and Icons.
2. Settings – This button will allow you to change your information on your profile or to set your location.
3. Create New Item of Interest – This button allows for the creation of one of many types of alerts, incidents, or labels that can be placed on the map for others to check out.
4. Center Map – This button will center the map back to the Area of Interest.
5. Refresh – This button will refresh SpotOnResponse.

The Red and Yellow bars are in your immediate and general area, based on your Area of Interest.

Area of Interest and Setting Location

Click on the Settings button in the top left corner and select profile. The profile page is shown below.

Here you can edit your personal information along with the organization you are affiliated with. Here, the password can be changed as well. There is also a field that asks for the Area of Interest in miles. The Area of Interest (AOI) will be the area around the user on the SpotOnResponse map where they will see incidents (in this case the AOI is set for 100 miles). Anything outside the AOI will not be shown. You can always change the AOI to see more incidents. Once you are done changing your information or setting the AOI, click submit and the listings page will be brought back up.

On the same settings button, there is also an option to set your location.

If the location on the SpotOnResponse map does not accurately reflect the your position, your location can be set manually by selecting to turn off the GPS on the top left corner. There are three options for setting your location. If the latitude and longitude of the location is known, simply input it in to the fields. If they are not known, you can look up the coordinates by searching for the address and the fields for lat and long will be populated automatically. The third option is to double click on the map and the lat/long fields will be populated. Once the new location is satisfactory, click “Set Location” and the new location will be saved. Note in the picture above, the original location has the marker set in San Francisco. The new location where the marker will be placed is Oakland.

Creating an Item of Interest or Responding to an Incident

Once the location and Area of Interest is set, the map will be populated with Incidents within the Area of Interest. By going to Layers button, different features can be toggled on the map.
The red and yellow bars at the bottom of the screen are all the Incidents within the Area of Interest. An incident will be red if it is within two miles of your current position.

To create an Incident/Item of interest

Selecting the create new Item of Interest button in the top left corner will begin the process to create a new Item of Interest. Items of Interest include:

• Incidents*
• Action Plan*
• Alert (CAP)
• Command
• Hospital/Health
• ICS Forms
• Infrastructure
• Resources
• Situation Report
• SOP & Task
• Shelters

*For ShakeOut 2012 only Incidents and Action Plans will be used

The process to create an Incident is the same as creating any other Item of Interest. Fill out the subject line and description of the item. The location for the incident will be the location where you are making the Incident is located. If you is not near actual location of the incident, a change in location will be required.(See setting location). Once the incident/item of interest is created it will be populated on the map.

Responding to an Incident
Clicking on any of the Incidents in the list will bring up the page for that Incident. Also, selecting a marker on the map anad clicking on details will bring up the Incident page. In this example, the Zynga incident was selected.

The first thing that should be noted is that SpotOnResponse will highlight a route from your location to the Incident. Also there are several important buttons in the top menu.

1. Observation – this button will bring up options to add an update to this incident, set your location, and check-in
2. External Reports – here you will be able to access field tools and forms from other organizations (ie. USGS, EERI, etc)
3. Back – this button will bring you back to the listings page

The blue bars towards the bottom are Action Updates. These updates range from noting that someone has checked in or that someone has made a comment on this incident. These updates are organized from the top to bottom, top being the earliest and the bottom being the most recent. The map also shows these updates as a blue markers with a “U”.

To check-in, click on the observation button and select check-in. The check-in will appear at the bottom of the Action Updates as you join the team.

To add an Action Update, click on the observation button and select update. The following screen will appear.

Once the fields are filled out, there is an option to attach a file or URL to the update. The files need to be the local device. After the update has been filled out, click “submit” and the update will appear at the bottom of the Action Update list. If a file is attached to an update, it will appear with the update as seen below.

Just as each incident on the listing page had its own page, so does each Action Update. This page shows the details and description about the update. The files attached to the update will also be shown.

Finally, if the Incident has particular interest with other organizations like a ground failure for the USGS or structural collapse for EERI, there are external reports that can be filled out. By clicking on the external reports button in the top left corner, there are currently a few forms available for data collection. Here is an example of the USGS Field Tools form. More information on this tool can be found here.

Presented by:  California Earthquake Clearinghouse, Cal OES, City of Walnut Creek, City of Berkeley, CA National Guard, NAPSG Foundation, FEMA, DHS, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and NCRIC

COPRI2011_ChileThe attached poster was presented at the ASCE Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute Conference in Alaska in June, 2011.  The poster compares the effects and observations from the 2010 Chile and 2011 Japan tele-tsunamis in California.  The reference for the poster is:

Wilson, R., Ewing, L., Dengler, L., Boldt, E., Evans, T., Miller, K., Nicolini, T., and Ritchie, A., 2011, Effects of the February 27, 2010 Chilean Tsunami on the harbors, ports, and the maritime community in California, with comparison to preliminary evaluation of March 11, 2011 tsunami: American Society of Civil Engineers, Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute, Solutions to Coastal Disasters Conference, Anchorage, AK, June 26-29, 2011: poster session.

It’s been a very busy three days (and nights).  The tsunami is still ringing in Crescent Harbor – amplitudes are about 20% of the peak and below hazard levels but still too high to safely work in the harbor or send in divers to assess the situation beneath the water.  There is a diesel spill and other hazmat concerns.  Ten boats sank – 9 of them deposited in the boat basin and one sailboat swept out into the larger harbor and deposited near the mouth of Elk Creek.  Some accounts mention 11 sunk boats – but that counts one that sank about 7 years ago.  Most of these boats were derelict or little used.  There are concerns that some of the rock bank failed and sediments were deposited on the basin floor.  We won’t know the full impacts until an underwater assessment can be completed.  All of the damage appears confined to the boat basin – I have yet to hear of any significant problems in the inner or outer harbor.   I don’t have the exact count of the boats that put to sea before the tsunami arrived – it seems to be in the neighborhood of 25.  The process of notification of boat owners began late Thursday evening and seems to have gone well.  The evacuation was orderly.  This event points out the importance of tsunami plans at all ports and harbors, even small ones like Crescent City and Brookings.  While leaving the harbor seems to have gone smoothly, not all captains were prepared for the long offshore wait or had sufficient fuel to make it to alternate port.  As Friday afternoon wore on, concerns grew about when the boats could come back to port and where they could dock.  The closest undamaged facility was in Humboldt Bay but several boats couldn’t make it that far.  There was also concern about a storm due to arrive late Friday evening.  Humboldt Bay has one of the most hazardous entrances of any West Coast port and smaller boats can only safely enter on flood tides.  So the decision had to be made to allow boats back into the ports while the advisory was still in effect.  The boats with insufficient fuel returned to Crescent City.  They docked at the south side of the outer harbor where the currents were not as strong.  Most of the Crescent City fleet along with a number of boats from Brookings went to Humboldt – we observed a steady stream of boats crossing through the mouth from about 6 PM to midnight.

I’ve only document one instance of overland flow in Del Norte County.  Tsunami amplitudes just before High High tide a little after 3 AM Saturday morning reached a little over a meter and caused the highest water stand (about 2.8 meters above MLLW) of the whole event.   Deputy Sheriffs observed water “boiling onto the roadway” at the campground near Elk Creek.  They will provide me with a detailed high water line when I return tomorrow.  This highest water stand occurred around the 40th cycle and 20 hours after the first wave arrival.  The effect of the ambient tide was huge in this event.  Had the tsunami occurred 6 hours earlier or 18 hours later, major on-land flooding would have occurred.

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/japan-devastated-hawaii-and-west-coast-of-us-largely-spared-by-pacific-ocean-wide-tsunami_53348/

Very useful map of Tide Data:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/tsunami/#

Happy 2011!

Hope you all had a great holiday season.  I want to take the opportunity to thank all of our returning members for their renewed enthusiasm and efforts in support of the California Earthquake Clearinghouse (CA EQ CH) and welcome all of our new members to the group.  We had a busy year in 2010 and accomplished a lot.   In October we had a stakeholder’s meeting attended by many new participants, both in person, and via our on-line webinar.  We also carried out the annual Shake Out exercise on 10/21.  The Shake Out exercise included a mock call down to test the procedures for establishing a physical location for the CA EQ CH at a Caltrans maintenance facility following a fictional event in S. CA and one in N. CA.  The Shake Out also included a tabletop exercise coordinated with USGS/SCEC in Southern California.  Last year we also upgraded our website as well as our Clearinghouse Fact Sheet and recruiting flyer, and, we developed a new partnership with the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security/ Customs and Border Patrol (U.S. DHS/C & BP) wherein they will provide overflight support for CA EQ CH post-earthquake activities.  Not too shabby!

Now we’re into a new year and we still have a lot to do.  Looking forward, with regard to Outreach activities, we will be hosting our first stakeholder’s meeting in S. CA in April.  The meeting will be held on Thursday, April 7, at Cal Tech so we need to publicize the meeting and encourage people to attend the meeting, either in person or, via the webinar option.  Another priority for the Outreach group is to arrange to meet with the Cal EMA headquarters group; the people who monitor the RIMS system and match resources to requests for assistance.  Over the last year it became clear Cal EMA HQ are not familiar with the CA EQ CH.  In the event of a major earthquake this lack of coordination could cause serious delay in the CA EQ CHs ability to secure resources necessary to respond (e.g. securing a Mission Task Order to authorize activation of the Civil Air Patrol or use of a Caltrans maintenance facility).  Our goal is to have the CA EQ CH Fact Sheet included in the Cal EMA HQ incident response “play book”.  Finally, the Outreach committee should continue efforts to foster participation by various state/local law enforcement agencies (i.e. city/county, National Guard, Port officials, etc).

We have big plans for the Overflight committee as well.  With our newly formed partnership with U.S. DHS/C & BP in place we need to start identifying the first group of CA EQ CH personnel to be trained on the data collecting equipment onboard the U.S. DHS/C & BP air craft.  We will arrange to schedule at least one training session/demo flight prior to the Golden Guardian exercise scheduled in May of this year.  Also, as exciting as the new partnership with U.S. DHS/C & BP is, we still need to continue to develop/finalize other overflight options including Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and use of a dirigible (e.g. Airship Ventures). 

And let us not forget the IT group.  We have a great new web site capable of accommodating the uploading of photos and other data and referencing said information to an interactive map.  The new web site also has groups where individuals can engage in discussions regarding the various CA EQ CH areas of interest (geology, engineering, etc.).  Cal EMA, one of our CA EQ CH partners, is also working on upgrading the GIS capabilities at Cal EMA.  The Cal EMA system will be able to upload and store data and/or retrieve data, (in various formats) from other servers and make the data available for emergency responders and others, both during and after major earthquakes.  The next step is to figure out how to integrate the new CA EQ CH web site with the new GIS capability under development at Cal EMA.  Primarily, we need to make sure people know where they can go to input various types of data.   In addition, NASA (west coast) and Goddard (east coast) have both approached the Clearinghouse with proposals similar to the offer by U.S. DHS/C & BP, to provide resources for emergency response operations following a major earthquake.  Among the resources being offered are (but not limited to) hardware, data, satellites and band width.  The IT committee will actively pursue these offers and set up whatever agreements are necessary to secure the use of these important resources and make sure the resources we’re developing (i.e. Cal  EMA GIS system) are compatible with these other resources. 

Finally, the Management group will be pursuing several important goals.  On the horizon for the coming year the management group will work to coordinate CA EQ CH participation in the upcoming Golden Guardian exercise in May as well as the annual Shake Out exercise.  We will also continue efforts to increase membership by scheduling the fall stakeholder in northern CA.  We also became aware of a new on-line web tool from Cal EMA to manage our volunteers.  The new tool is not quite operational yet, but when it is available, we will start to use it to coordinate our various resources (e.g. subject matter experts, multi-lingual volunteers, regional experts, etc.) to improve our response capabilities.  This volunteer resource management tool will make it possible for official volunteers to receive “state-funded …worker’s compensation benefits for disaster service worker volunteers who contribute their services to protect the health and safety and preserve the lives and property of the people of the state.  This program was established to protect such volunteers from financial loss as a result of injuries sustained while engaged in disaster service activities and to provide immunity from liability for such disaster service worker volunteers while providing disaster service. “ (California Code of Regulations Title 19, Div. 2, Ch. 2. Sub-chapter 3, §2570.1)  And, in an effort to address the ongoing concern over access into affected areas, we will pursue the idea of a volunteer training program with the goal of issuing a CA EQ CH badge/credential to those who successfully complete training.  This is just one possible solution to the access issue.  Finally, we will establish a new sub-committee to help refine our response according to region/scenario.

There you have it.  We’ve accomplished a lot but we still have a lot to do, so the more people we can encourage to participate, the lighter the load for each individual.  Please continue to make suggestions and take action to improve our organization. 

Thanks to all for your continued help!

Anne Rosinski
Chair, California Earthquake Clearinghouse
California Geological Survey

Hi everyone.

I have a couple of observations as a CEC Online newby that probably need some attention before the first event-related clearinghouse occurs.

My initial experience was a bit frustrating. I spotted the link from CGS, visited the system, and figured out how to register. I wanted to leave a message to report a broken link in the flier but could not. It wasn’t until the next day that I saw an email from the system telling me to click on a link to verify my email address. I do not recall seeing any indication to check my email for such a confirmation message after I registered. If that prompt doesn’t exist, then one should be added.

I also suggest that a one-page FAQ for users be developed with basic instructions about accessing the online clearinghouse site. I can imagine dozens to hundreds of researchers wanting access but not knowing how to do so. Similarly, I imagine that many will want to know how to upload data to the web site either for immediate display or for review and eventual display. For example, the first FAQ ideally would spell out how to register and alert users that they will not be able to post or submit data until they verify their email address.

Regarding data collection, I recent read an article about the “top smartphone applications for academics.” One uses the GPS, camera, and data entry capabilities of the smartphone to report road kills. On reading the article (see http://chronicle.com/article/College-20-6-Top-Smartphone/125764/ ), I quickly realized that the app probably could be adapted for collecting information either in a Did You Feel It or EqCH operation. More information about the road kill data gathering effort should be available at http://roadecology.ucdavis.edu/ or from Frank Shilling (#nbsp;fmshilling@ucdavis.edu#nbsp;), co-director of the Road Ecology Center.

I have other thoughts on related topics but will save them for another post. Back to grading final exams for one of my classes.

— Ted Smith