Although residents rushed to higher ground during the more than hour-long tsunami warning, a destructive wave never appeared.
“We need to work hard at reducing unnecessary alerts,” Dengler said. “We need to know within 5 to 10 minutes.
If a tsunami was produced, and at present, it was kind of crazy having a tsunami warning in place for so long.”
Communities close to Cape Mendocino would have seen the initial surges “on the order of minutes,” according to Dengler, given the earthquake’s closeness.
DART is a network of buoys operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that senses changes in sea floor pressure to identify tsunamis.
However, Dengler said that in order to provide tsunami predictions that are more accurate and timely, additional scientific tools must be included into the system.
According to Dengler, “the closest DART systems are hundreds of miles away” from the epicenter on Thursday.
“You really need more ocean-bottom instruments to detect what’s happening near the source quickly.”
