Who Needs To Get Out?

Tsunamis usually range around 3-15 meters tall in the Pacific Ocean (source), and usually the water from the wave does not inundate the land more than 2 miles inland (source).


Therefore, for the five major islands of Micronesia that we are focusing on: Pohnpei, Weno, Yap, Kosrae, and Tol - we only need to be concerned with evacuating the people who live within 2 miles of the coast all around the island. However, as seen by the estimates, because it appears that most people live near the coast, for most of the islands we have assumed the number of people needing to be evacuated is the entire island's population.

Going To A Large Building

Since Micronesia's larger buildings are all located near the coast where all of the major towns are, we are unable to use these buildings as evacuation centers.


Instead, we must evacuate all of the people that live within two miles of the coast farther inland to special safety spots.

How Do You Get To These Safety Spots?

The routes that will lead to these safety spots will be clearly marked with signs that depict the routes to travel to get to the closest evacuation site.


These routes will be cleared at least one a month to make sure that there are no hazards such as tree branches, or brush that might grow to obscure the passageway and impede the evacuation. These once a month maintenance checks will be conducted by government workers (we have taken this cost into account in our budget estimate).

What Are These Evacuation Sites Like?

Each evacuation site will be similar to a campsite. There will be a small cabin constructed in a forest clearing, natural, if possible. Inside the cabin there will be a computer set up (again, taken into account in our budget estimate) so that people can login when they reach the evacuation site. We have checked to make sure that there are people with computer use skills, and especially from the large cities, many people are capable of using new technology (source). There will also be supplies in this cabin such as food, water, materials to put up shelters, medical supplies, blankets, clothing, etc. These supplies will be distributed to the people at the evacuation sites. There will also be a large canopy set up at each evacuation site where the people can congregate under in case of inclement weather.

What is the Purpose of the Computer?

Once the people reach the central meeting site computers will be there to login each person. By having everyone sign in, the Micronesian government will be able to see who survived the tsunami by looking at the records of the people in the evacuation sites. Even if everyone who survives does not go to an evacuation site, it will give the government a good estimate of survivors.


The login records will also be posted online and updated every hour so that people can check for the names of family members and friends.

How Many People Are Going To Be There?

Past the initial perimeter of 2 miles along the coast, safety spots will be set up so that each of these spots will be able to support around 500 people each.


Because there is going to be a large number of people at these sites, the computer will again be useful to see who is there and it will save people the agonizing task of searching through a large crowd of people for their family and friends.