Nearly a month after the March 11 tsunami warning, there is still confusion about what caused the stark difference in information circulating in the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking communities.
In Santa Cruz, the morning of March 11 saw throngs of tsunami-watchers ignoring the voluntary evacuation order and lining West Cliff Drive to watch surfers at Steamer Lane. In Watsonville, though, it was a different scene.
“We saw that people were lining up at gas stations, causing some traffic problems,” says Lt. David McCartney of the Watsonville Police Department. Officers were dispatched to control traffic when runs on the gas stations clogged Main Street and Riverside Drive. He says police received reports of cars filling up the pullouts on Highway 152 and of people from Watsonville seeking refuge at Casa de Fruta and the Gilroy outlets.
Nearly a month after the incident, there is still confusion about what caused the stark difference in information circulating in the Spanish-speaking and English-speaking communities that day. Laurie Lang, who helps coordinate the Emergency Preparedness Program for Santa Cruz County Health Services, has been organizing community meetings to discuss tsunami procedures.
Lang says that based on a community meeting held Mar. 29 in Beach Flats, it seems that residents who watched the news in both languages that day received conflicting information. “If you watched the Spanish TV, they were saying it was a mandatory evacuation, and if you watched the English TV, they were saying it was a voluntary evacuation—which it was—and I think the Spanish TV was only streaming pictures from Japan,” she says.
Erandi García, anchor for Spanish-language KSMS, said that the news team at the local Univision affiliate did not begin to issue new briefs on the tsunami until 1pm and did not have an anchor on the air until 6:30pm. García said she believed that a Spanish radio station was responsible for spurring the panic, though she was unsure which station.
“I just think people basically start communicating between themselves and the information they are passing along is not the correct information.” García said. “There was not a Spanish media [outlet] that could tell them, ‘Everything is going to be OK’ until 6:30 when we went on air, and I guess by that time it was a little bit late.”
Public Information officers from local agencies met with members of the media on Thursday, April 7 to discuss emergency procedure for the future. Over the next few weeks, Santa Cruz County’s Tsunami Ready program will be holding community meetings to discuss disaster preparedness. Meetings will be held on April 12 at the Jade Community Center in Capitola, on April 20 at the Simpkins Swim Center in Santa Cruz and on May 4 in the Civic Plaza Community Room in Watsonville.
