By Staff Reports
(HONOLULU) – The City and County of Honolulu began the second phase of a project aimed at increasing public awareness of O‘ahu’s Tsunami Hazard Areas, which are those areas that are within one of the island’s two tsunami evacuation zones. The project’s second phase involves installing over 260 road signs at key entry and exit points into the Tsunami Hazard Area and along major coastal roadways. The first road signs were installed earlier this month in Windward O‘ahu and will continue around the island through the end of the year.
Three different types of signs are being installed to alert motorists and pedestrians when they are entering, leaving, or within the Tsunami Hazard Area. The Tsunami Hazard Area consists of Oahu’s two tsunami evacuation zones, which are viewable at www.honolulu.gov/tsunamievac. The standard evacuation zone, depicted in red on evacuation maps, is used for almost all tsunami warnings. The extreme zone, depicted in yellow on evacuation maps, will only be evacuated in a rare, more extreme tsunami event triggered by a magnitude 9.0 or greater earthquake off the Eastern Aleutian Islands. The signs encourage people to “Know Your Zones” to promote public understanding that multiple evacuation zones exist. There are no changes to the tsunami evacuation zones associated with this project.
“One of our goals with the installation of these road signs is to help the public better understand what areas of the island are at risk of experiencing a tsunami. A second and equally important objective of this project that these signs help support is increasing awareness of the two different evacuation zones and what those boundaries are. Improving public understanding is critical to ensuring people evacuate when they need to and reducing the number of people who evacuate unnecessarily”, said Hiro Toiya, director of the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management. “Unnecessary evacuation can congest roadways, making it difficult for those who must leave tsunami evacuation zones from doing so.”
The Tsunami Hazard Sign project began in December of 2022 with the installation of 177 signs at City and State parks that instruct visitors what to do in the event of a Tsunami Warning. These signs included a QR code or URL to the Oʻahu tsunami evacuation zone map.
The Tsunami Hazard Area Sign project is supported by a hazard mitigation grant awarded to the City by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.