WESTPORT, Wash. — Washington has some of the highest tsunami risk in the country, and yet the state lacks dozens of necessary evacuation sites in coastal communities, according to a state report published in 2021.
Funding is a major hurdle.
Vertical evacuation structures are built to provide safe refuge above water in the event of a significant tsunami, especially in cases where there is limited time to react.
The state will require at least 58 vertical evacuation structures on the low end and more than 80 on the high end, according to the report.
Right now, Washington only has two.
A third vertical evacuation structure is in the works in Westport.
When it’s finished, it is expected to hold more than 2,000 people.
The total cost of the Westport project is expected to be just under $16.8 million.
A grant from FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program will fund 90 percent of the project.
The City of Long Beach, California, was working on a BRIC funding application for another vertical evacuation structure when the Trump administration abruptly canceled the program.
“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program,” a FEMA spokesperson wrote in a press release at the time. “It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.”
A coalition of 20 states, including Washington, is suing the administration over the decision.
“The BRIC program supports often difficult-to-fund projects, such as constructing evacuation shelters and floodwalls, safeguarding utility grids against wildfires, protecting wastewater and drinking water infrastructure, and fortifying bridges, roadways, and culverts,” wrote a spokesperson for the Washington Attorney General’s office.
More than 175,000 people in Washington live in tsunami inundation zones, areas where flooding is most likely to occur.
The vertical evacuation structure near Westport at Ocosta Elementary School was the first evacuation shelter of its kind built in the United States, according to the state. It was put up in 2016.
Another vertical evacuation structure was built in Tokeland in 2022.
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