Shoalwater Bay Tribe Unveils Tsunami Evacuation Tower

Narrator: The waters that bring such beauty to the coast also carry a threat of a massive wave that could strike during a tsunami, making landfall in minutes following a powerful earthquake. 

Speaker: “It’s not if it’s when we are in the window, we’re in the window for that to happen. So not if when.”

Narrator:  Today, Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribal Leaders, FEMA and Partners, celebrated a solution. The nation’s first FEMA-funded, tribal-led freestanding vertical evacuation tower. 

Lee Shipman: “We helped to change the atmosphere of being helpless victims into one of knowing we can and will survive if we all work together.”

Narrator:  Standing 50 feet tall with diameters rooted underneath. The tribe led the work, but it’s meant for all who live nearby.

Charlene Nelson: “We’re all the same. We want to be safe. We want to be living.”

Narrator:  Emergency managers, pledging to build more along the coast with the work of the Shoalwater Bay Indian tribe, serving as a guide.  From Pacific County, Eric Zuko, King Five News.