[porkloin]

I grew up in coastal AK and I can't remember more than one time that we faced evacuation orders. We had weekly tests of our tsunami alarm system, but I only ever heard them operated in a non-test that one time. I still keep a close eye on it every time there is an earthquake in the area that triggers a warning because I have family there.

In the last few years there has been a significant uptick in the number of alerts that trigger sirens, orders to evacuate to higher ground, etc. Talking to people back home, it seems like they're "warning-ed out" as you say and are beginning to tune it out.

A 7.3 magnitude quake absolutely can trigger a tsunami big enough to threaten your life, so the NTWC is 100% doing the right thing. I also agree that they need to be careful about perception, and careful about stoking panic. A few years ago, a pedestrian in my home town was struck and killed by a car driving to higher ground during a tsunami warning. There wasn't any tsunami activity that day, but the pedestrian is still dead.

It's impossible to completely attribute the death to the state of alarm/evacuation, but it's not hard to see how a driver and a pedestrian in that situation might be less than completely attentive due to the loud sirens, increased traffic to unusual areas, etc.