A Kodiak Archipelago community of about 130 people is the latest to be designated as tsunami ready by the National Weather Service. Earlier this month during the week of May 5, Ouzinkie, also known by its Native name Uusenkaa, joined the list of roughly 15 other tsunami ready communities in Alaska, which includes Kodiak.
The first step of the multi-step process was creating a local emergency response plan, also known as a SCERP. Kerry Ivory, the tribal administrator for the Native Village of Ouzinkie, said that process was complicated and took time. The community started in 2022 and in addition to the SCERP, had to create a hazard mitigation plan and map the inundation zones for the whole community.
“It took us about 2.5 or 3 years to get there. We started it back in the midst of COVID," Ivory explained. "And obviously there have been a lot of other priorities going on, so it took us quite a while to get there but we’re so grateful that we finally did.”
Ivory said the project was the local Mayor’s "baby" and he put in a lot of work to get it done. Mayor Elijah Jackson, who is also the community village public safety officer (VPSO), could not be reached for comment before the airing of this story.
As part of getting tsunami ready, the Native Village and the City of Ouzinkie have been working in tandem to fund and construct a new tsunami shelter to house all community members where they can also store necessary equipment and supplies. The Native Village received $2 million in federal money through congressionally directed spending in fiscal year 2023 for the purpose of building a new tsunami evacuation center.
Ivory said the local evacuation area is on the other side of a nearby hill, above the community, which is a challenging location to reach quickly during a tsunami. The local school building is also a designated tsunami shelter, so Ouzinkie has two options for its residents to evacuate to.
“So we decided that we needed to have the equipment stored on high ground so that if we did have a tsunami, we’d have the ability to help ourselves out," Ivory said. "If all of our equipment got washed away in the tsunami or flooded with saltwater, that would be an impossibility.”
Ivory said the building materials are in Kodiak currently and are ready to be barged to Ouzinkie, which is about 10 miles north of Kodiak on Spruce Island. She added that the community is clearing the ground at the site and has hired a contractor to construct the shelter as soon as possible, likely by the end of this year.
If a tsunami generated by a local earthquake near Kodiak were to hit Ouzinkie, Ivory said residents would only have 15 minutes to get to high ground, in the worst case scenario.
The community’s electrical grid, which is a self-contained grid mainly powered by hydropower, is vulnerable to a tsunami. Ivory said most of Ouzinkie’s infrastructure is located in the inundation zone, or areas that may be flooded during a tsunami.
And if a tsunami were to hit, Ivory worries that the community would not be able to communicate with the outside world because at this point most residents don’t have cell service without internet access. Many have VHF radios however as a backup communication device.
Despite the challenging logistics that still exist for the community, the National Weather Service officially certified Ouzinkie as tsunami ready earlier this month during the week of May 5. Ivory said she feels better prepared for a future tsunami that will likely strike in her lifetime.
“We hope to be even better prepared as time goes on. We’re hoping to have drills and try to get as many people to the tsunami shelter within 15 minutes as possible," she said.
Ouzinkie had some help from multiple state and federal representatives to become tsunami ready, including from Aviva Braun, the warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Anchorage. She said Ouzinkie is the second Alaska Native community in the state to achieve this certification and she would like to see every coastal community be certified. Seldovia Village was the first.
“I want them all. Alaska Native communities definitely, we want more of them. There should be more than two," Braun said. "And really what it is, is making sure that they have emergency plans in place to react, to get through an incident and make sure that their community remains safe and resilient through the process. It’s all about public safety.”
Other Kodiak Archipelago communities such as Akhiok, Karluk, Larsen Bay, Old Harbor, and Port Lions, have tsunami sirens and a local tsunami evacuation plan but have not yet finished the rest of the work to become certified as tsunami ready.
For more information about that process, contact the National Weather Service office in Anchorage by calling 907-266-5105 and ask for Aviva Braun.
