For Ruby Starr, of Coos Bay, it was her three kitties.

For Gene Fitch, of Bandon, it was images of Hurricane Katrina victims.

The Boy Scouts' motto, “Be prepared,” motivated Dan Gauche, of North Bend.

And for Harry Stamper, of Charleston, it was a bowl of sloshing tomato soup.

On Saturday morning, 159 people found one reason or another to make their way to the Hales Center for the Performing Arts at Southwestern Oregon Community College for a workshop on earthquake and tsunami disaster preparedness. Participants received instructions for preparing disaster kits, organizing neighborhood response teams and reacting in the first moments to an earthquake. Prior to these exercises, the audience received a reminder of how powerful Mother Nature can be from the morning's featured speaker.

Tsunami mechanics

Jay Wilson, earthquake and tsunami program coordinator with Oregon Emergency Management, described the mechanics of tsunami formation and how such a disaster would impact the southern Oregon coast. A tsunami-generating earthquake would be of a magnitude 8.6 or higher, resulting from a sudden shift of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, located less than 60 miles from Coos Bay. The likelihood of such an event in the next 50 years is 15 percent. Should such an event occur, a tsunami of between 20 and 65 feet would arrive on the coast within 15 and 20 minutes, according to Wilson. Multiple waves would likely occur, the third or fourth posing the greatest threat.

He showed a video documenting the destruction caused by the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.

“One thing many people do not realize is the power of the water,” Wilson said as a surging mass of white froth plowed through the main thoroughfare of a tropical town. “Just a foot of water (in a tsunami) can rip up cars and carry them away.”

The video included a segment comparing the force of windblown waves and those created by underwater earthquake. Set in an indoor water tunnel, the first shot captured the familiar sight of undulating surf, crashing benignly on the simulated shoreline. The second demonstration, unlike normal wave action, ominously approached with a sustained high wall of water behind it, which Wilson said accounted for the strength of a tsunami. The fabricated waterfront buildings never had a chance.

In several scenes from the 2004 calamity, curious European tourists ventured to the shoreline, which temporarily receded following the 9.1-magnitude earthquake. A similar problem could impact the South Coast if a temblor occurred along the Cascadia Subduction Zone during the summer months.

“The danger is especially real for tourists, who are in a different frame of mind, a bubble, really, in which you don't think about what might happen to you,” Wilson said. “Many times, as happened in Indonesia and could happen here, they take risks because they don't think something bad could happen to them.”

Questions answered

In order to prevent year-round residents from making such mistakes, a panel of local emergency responders answered audience queries for well over an hour. Many expressed concerns about the location of emergency sirens, designed to sound for three-minute intervals if a tsunami warning is received. According to Coos Bay Fire Chief Stan Gibson and North Bend Police Chief Steve Scibelli, sirens are located at the North Bend High School, the Coos Bay-North Bend Water Board, the Empire fire station and in downtown Charleston. Those locations were chosen, Gibson said, because they can be heard in the populated areas of tsunami hazard zones.

“If you can't hear a siren from your house (in Coos Bay), it is because you are in a safety zone,” he said.

In the moments following a sizeable earthquake, Wilson cautioned against residents relying on their vehicles to move to higher ground.

“When we had a tsunami warning along the coast on June 14, 2005, everyone went to their cars and as a result, vehicles quickly clogged the roadways and became a barrier for rescue equipment,” he said. “If you depend on your car, you will find your life shortchanged.”

Wilson also urged audience members not to call 911 in the aftermath of an earthquake unless there was an emergency.

“During last year's tsunami warning, every single coastal county's 911 line was inundated with calls, mostly from people wanting to know if they were in a tsunami hazard zone,” he said. “We are all personally responsible to do our homework now, so the only people who call 911 are those who really need help.”

Emergency kits

Aside from not abusing the emergency phone service, audience members were asked to create emergency kits, including first aid supplies as well as food and water to last for at least 72 hours, preferably a week or more.

“For the time it takes the federal level to get in here, I would say rather than days, it will probably be weeks before sustained level of support arrives here,” Wilson said.

Families also were urged to create and practice emergency procedures in the event family members are separated when a temblor occurs. One suggestion was to select an out-of-state contact person everyone could call following a catastrophe, the logic being local phone lines may be damaged, restricting communications.

“It is important to make these preparations before something happens,” said Ranae Iverson, an American Red Cross member as well as a special education teacher in Coquille. “Unfortunately, many people wait to prepare until after something happens.”

That finding seemed to hold true in regards to workshop participants, a number of whom had experienced an earthquake or tsunami warning in the past.

Arthur Cordell, who lives on North Bay Drive, experienced two earthquakes while he was living in Southern California.

“I was at a swap meet in '94 and all of a sudden, there was a tremor and I couldn't stand up. I saw the ground ripple and it rolled like that for about 30 seconds,” he said. “Once it stopped, people started walking around like it was just another day in the park.”

Starr, whose concern for her felines led her to attend the workshop, also experienced earthquakes while she was living in Southern California. A counselor by trade, she is concerned about the psychological impact a major disaster might have on the local population. She recounted how a windstorm in February 2001 waylaid her in Reedsport, where a number of stranded motorists had no supplies and, as a result, many panicked.

“Should something happen, people will be stunned because essentially, it's a traumatic experience,” she said. “People need to learn to get along with each other, be neighborly.”

It was an earthquake that disturbed Stamper's afternoon snack and motivated him to be prepared for a catastrophic event. Raised in San Anselmo, Calif., in the 1950s, Stamper had returned home from school and prepared himself a bowl of tomato soup when a minor earthquake set everything moving, including the soup.

“It was a sign, something to make me stop and think about it,” he said. “I have been pretty quake-conscious ever since.”

Unlike Stamper, however, it seems area residents are more conscious following a media-covered disaster. Last fall, months after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, more than 400 people attended a similar workshop at Southwestern. Despite the lower turnout this year, Kathy Hornstuen, project coordinator of South Western Oregon Public Safety Association, was happy to be able to provide material and information for those who did appear.

“If I can help one person be better prepared for a natural disaster, then it has been a success,” she said.