British Columbia tsunami notification methods: A toolkit for community planning
The purpose of this toolkit is to provide British Columbia's local authorities and their communities with information that will allow them to evaluate the many options available to provide notifications and warnings to the public of a potential or impending tsunami wave. The toolkit provides descriptions of notification methods and options, brief discussions of their advantages and disadvantages relative to other methods, implementation considerations and costs. The type of method(s) of notifications that each local area uses will be shaped by several factors, including: the physical location and nature of the population (e.g. residents vs. nonresidents), time of day, budget, geographic location, available supporting infrastructure, local customs, economic and social activities, etc. To achieve effective warning there should be complete and timely coverage, redundancy and seamless meshing of new and existing systems.
While this toolkit was developed specifically with tsunami hazards in mind, it may also be applicable to many other hazards that could impact communities.