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How ready is the U.S. for a major earthquake or tsunami?

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The Earth saw one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded early today - 8.8 magnitude off the coast of far eastern Russia. It sent walls of water - tsunamis - across the Pacific Ocean traveling at the speed of jumbo jets. The water eventually reached several feet above normal in places including Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast. But earlier today, the last tsunami warnings in the U.S. were downgraded to tsunami advisories. Now that is some relief, but a question remains. Is the U.S. ready for a major earthquake or tsunami? Kit Miyamoto is a structural engineer who specializes in earthquake resiliency. He joins me now. Mr. Miyamoto, welcome.

KIT MIYAMOTO: Thank you.

KELLY: So you're in California now. Tell me where exactly and what today has been like.

MIYAMOTO: Well, you know, I'm here in LA. And LA is far enough from an epicenter, and so therefore, we had the certain advisory for a little while, but now it's not issue here anymore.

KELLY: Yeah.

MIYAMOTO: But an advisory still exists in the northern coastline of the California.

KELLY: Let me circle back to the question that I posed as I was introducing you. Happily, the warnings have been downgraded now for a major tsunami, but would the West Coast be ready in a worst-case tsunami scenario?

MIYAMOTO: We're not. See - and we have the, you know, large subduction zone, which is essentially the fault line is capable to rupture in a large earthquake like that one in - along the coastline of the Northern California to the Oregon and Washington, OK? And when that ruptures - it does happen in the past. And it does cause a large tsunami, like what you saw, what we saw in Japan in 2011, which tsunami height exceeded 10 meters and 15 meters and destroyed the - you know, many cities and it killed about almost 20,000 people.

KELLY: Yeah.

MIYAMOTO: And that could happen here.

KELLY: Yeah. You saw Japan just after that 2011 horrific event in which, as you noted, close to something like 19 - close to 20,000 people died. Were there lessons learned? Are there lessons you take away from that event that we should be applying?

MIYAMOTO: See, Japan is probably a hundred times more prepared than we were, you know? They spent a lot of money for the warning system and also evacuation drills and tsunami walls, the sea walls, throughout the whole coastline. And so that really saved a lot of people. Without it, they probably lost not 20,000 people, but 2 million people.

KELLY: What would being prepared look like?

MIYAMOTO: Well, I think most important thing is, and the cheapest thing we can think about is a good warning system and training and drill and how to react to it. Right now, we just don't have that robust warning system. You know, if I felt like a large earthquake, I would evacuate to the higher ground, you know? Higher ground doesn't have to be climbing the mountains. It can be robust, you know, like concrete apartment, you know, structures, office buildings - go up to fourth level, fifth level, and then you're clear. You're fine. And I saw many people save themselves like that in Japan, also, you know?

And secondly, driving a car is a bad idea. You know, if there's any traffic jam, just abandon the car in - away from the traffic. You know, don't clog that road, and just run to higher places, you know? And many people die in Japan because of traffic jam. That is, like, the worst thing you can imagine.

KELLY: Kit Miyamoto, his firm provides seismic engineering and disaster resilience services. Thank you so much.

MIYAMOTO: Thanks so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Jeffrey Pierre is an editor and producer on the Education Desk, where helps the team manage workflows, coordinate member station coverage, social media and the NPR Ed newsletter. Before the Education Desk, he was a producer and director on Morning Edition and the Up First podcast.
Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.