To the community,

At 10:54 (PST) last night, FEMA region IV and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for Northern Marianas/Tsunami Watch for Guam, Wake Island and Hawaii which was a result of an 8.8 magnitude quake in Japan. This warning has been expanded to the California north coastal area, Oregon and Washington. the Tsunami Warning center is predicting surf of 6-8 feet along the coast.

Local communities along the California Coast are exercising their respective emergency plans to inform their communities of the activity and are voluntarily moving people away from the beaches and unprotected marinas. The Coast Guard is taking steps to monitor boating traffic off the US coast and providing boating advisories.

Our county is a part of the California Inland Region, California Emergency Management Agency Region IV. Should the forecast from the Pacific Tsunami Warning center change to reflect significant changes in the estimated impacts and the need arise to expand into contiguous inland operational areas (counties), El Dorado County will receive an alert from the Inland Regional Emergency Operations Center of resource needs which might include temporary housing and/or resources in the form of emergency response.

However, it is highly likely that mass relocation would be to immediately adjacent areas to those impacted.

If resources are requested through the California Emergency Management Agency, it would be through activation of the statewide mutual aid system, the State Mutual Aid regions and subsequent operational areas would be notified. If requests are received through the Emergency Management response program, they would be fielded by the El Dorado County Office of Emergency Services in Placerville which manages the El Dorado County Operational Area. If resources are needed, we will be notified of the need and we would fill the request to our capability.

The plan we operate under for such an event is the El Dorado County Emergency Operations Plan which maintains contingencies for mass evacuation and the management of evacuees.

We continue to receive updates from both FEMA Region IX and the USGS/Pacific Tsunami Warning Center on activity in Japan which has included aftershock activity of 6.5-7 magnitude.

Lorenzo Gigliotti, South Lake Tahoe fire chief