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This morning on World News Now, breaking news a violent earthquake occupants northeast coast has
rocked the nation. A tsunami warning is in effect for a large part of that
country, as well as other nations as well. Waves could top thirty feet or more.
This is the California State Warning Center
with a tsunami message for coastal counties
the earthquake
in Japan
is an 8.8
A tsunami watch is now in affect for California.
We are just watching an unbelievable disaster befalling Japan right now.
I remember being at home and late that night seeing that there
had been a larger earthquake in japan. The police have evacuated everybody from
this seaside town along the beach. The motels are closed.
The restaurants are closed. The people have been moved back.
Northern California beginning to see some of the tsunami waves hit.
I immediately called the Warning Center, because I knew
that they were going to need additional staffing and ended up coming in
just a few minutes after that phone call and um... was here
through the night and through the next day.
The way that i explain the Warning Center to someone that I have never
met before is that we're 911 for 911.
So the 911 dispatchers sitting in the warning points in
California, when their resources are depleted
and they maximize their capabilities
You think, who do they call? Well,
we're the 911
for 911 centers. The Warning center is a center staffed
365 days a year,
24/7.
We monitor California for any type of natural or manmade disasters.
The Warning Center is mission control in California
for emergencies and disasters. It's the first point of contact
for any type of activity or emergency activity.
And our responsibilities are to ensure
that Californians get the proper information,
or the counties get the proper information
to inform their populous.
The thing is every emergency is an emergency.
Whether it is a small
car accident,
where the person is terrified
To, you know, a forty car pile up
that, you know, has
multiple fatalities. I mean, those are
things that take a lot of coordination with a lot of different emergency functions
to keep it from getting worse. We have some products that need to just get
the information out immediately so people can make quick decisions.
Those would be severe thunderstorm warnings, or
tornado warnings, flash flood warnings.
Essentially we word them as short as possible
with a quick message, saying, "You're in danger. You need to make some decisions now."
Our partnership with Cal EMA is one of, if not the, the strongest
partnership we have. If we see a possible event developing, it could be five days out
or even seven days out if it looks significant enough, one of the first partners that we will
usually get in touch with is
Cal EMA.
Both at the State Warning Center and the regional directors, and we will let them
know that we're seeing something that hasn't developed yet and we're not completely
sure about, however,
if it does develop, it could be very significant.
Previously,
you would have emergency managers or dispatchers, who ever had their finger on
the button...
It would be through all of these various silo systems. There was series of different steps
that an operator would have to take
just to activate maybe four or five different devices.
These notifications include critical information
for the public,
and first responders before
during and after an emergency.
The amount of notifications the Warning Center puts out
would be upwards of the 500,000.
In the Warning Center, you can go from 10 miles an hour
to 150 miles an hour in
seconds and you need to be prepared to do it.
One of the greatest things about managing the Warning Center is 0:04:40.020,0:04:44.559 it's a team environment
and the team includes people from the National Weather Service
and the counties
and my staff and the Cal EMA team.
It's just a lot of satisfaction to see
all those teams come together
in a common effort.