(AP) — When the men and women of U.S. Coast Guard Sector Columbia River came to work Monday morning, they were told they had 20 minutes to reach Fort Clatsop. In a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake, 20 minutes is about all the time residents would get to find higher ground. For the evacuation drill, about 100 members left their posts near the Astoria Regional Airport and ran 1.4 miles to the fort in Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, where the Coast Guard would set up an incident command center in an actual emergency. Anthony Kenne, chief of planning and force readiness with the Coast Guard, said the guard was searching for a location that was relatively close, out of the tsunami zone and had existing infrastructure. Before evacuating, members would take a satellite phone with a connection to the district office in Seattle and hand-held radios. A couple of years ago, the Coast Guard tried an evacuation drill at Camp Rilea Armed Forces Training Center in Warrenton, but realized the center was too far away. The national park and Coast Guard are in the process of establishing a written agreement to formally have an evacuation plan in place. Along with becoming an emergency headquarters for the Coast Guard, the national park is also an official community assembly area for residents in the immediate area.
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