CREW board member Yumei Wang produced the Cascadia Tsunami Casualty Estimates Report (2021) for the Oregon coast, now available on the Oregon Health Authority website. The casualty estimates, as well as descriptions of direct health effects of tsunamis on survivors, can be used by coastal hospitals, communities, and emergency planners to help shape realistic planning scenarios for emergency response exercises, such as Cascadia Rising 2022.
Underlying the report’s tsunami casualty estimates is the assumption that everyone in Oregon’s tsunami inundation zones is quick to evacuate on foot using optimal tsunami evacuation routes immediately after the Cascadia earthquake. In spite of this efficient evacuation, a large tsunami causes an estimated 18,667 fatalities and 819 injuries.
Funding for the report was provided by the Health Security, Preparedness and Response (HSPR) Program of the Oregon Health Authority.
Yumei Wang is owner of Sustainable Living Solutions LLC, as well as Senior Advisor on Infrastructure Resilience and Risk in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department of the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University.