BY PEPPER FISHER
Port Angeles – If you woke up today and saw our coast still had a tsunami advisory, we can tell you that the Washington State Emergency Management Division has said that advisory has been removed.
Earlier this morning there was still reason to be watchful because there had been observable waves greater than one foot coming into the coast. They said all waves must be less than one foot for three hours for the advisory to be cancelled by the National Tsunami Warning Center.
Neah Bay still had wave heights of 1.3 feet at 4:00am, and Port Angeles had wave heights at 1.2 feet at about 6:45am.
State park beaches were closed until 11:00 this morning. Here’s spokesperson Sarah Fronk.
“And so I do still want to give the warning that there might still be strong and unknown currents for the next 12 to about 24 hours. So we’re asking that people are still cautious if they’re on the shore or near the water. But ocean beaches have reopened now.”
As for Olympic National Par beaches, the Park’s Molly Pittman told us via email that their beaches also reopened at 11:00am. She said they will assess coastal areas for impacts to infrastructure today, and there were no rescue operations since the advisory was issued.
Emergency management officials said today this event is a reminder that we are in a tsunami hazard zone. They said we got lucky as the waves arrived at low tide and spread out over a longer distance so impact was minimal.