Tagged: Disasters and Accidents

The sound of tsunami warning sirens sent hundreds of people in Seaside, Oregon scurrying on foot to higher ground Wednesday. The resort town held a community-wide evacuation drill.

Thursday in Ocean Shores, Washington, dozens of people from government, tribes and community groups strategized how to respond to marine debris from last year's Japanese tsunami.

The Coast Guard is watching for fuel and debris from a derelict Japanese fishing vessel it sank off the coast of Southeast Alaska on Thursday.

Kip Wadlow is with the agency’s public affairs office. He says all that was spotted was a small sheen. But he expected that to dissipate quickly.

Crews will break ground this week on a new high school in Waldport on the Oregon coast. The existing school is in a tsunami zone. The new location will be on higher ground.

A pipe failure on Monday in British Columbia has released an estimated 1.2 million gallons of raw sewage into the Columbia River. Emergency crews from the British Columbia Ministry of Environment stopped the flow  Tuesday afternoon.

The federal agency that oversees the nation’s mines says it’s changing how it handles key documents designed to improve mine safety. The move was prompted in part by a public radio investigation on a fatal mine accident in north Idaho.