Since 1996, the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, a federal and five-state partnership based at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Sand Point, has been working to assess the hazards of tsunamis, improve their detection and reduce their damage by educating the public on safety procedures. The mitigation program and coastal counties have also put out hundreds of signs pointing residents to higher ground in case of an emergency. Fritts, the Pacific County emergency coordinator, has since had the sign printed on refrigerator magnets, which she hands out freely. Fritts envisions a telephone system that would automatically dial every home in danger and play a recorded tsunami warning. But she also knows that people need to plan their own escape procedures.
Many residents are so aware of the dangers that they call town officials any time they hear a siren.
But a sizable number of people are complacent. It's a hard attitude to confront when, statistically, many people can expect to live a lifetime on the ocean without experiencing a tsunami. They say, 'It's never happened.