The Beacon

I've heard the Oregon coastal community described as Cape Cod West.

Some of the residents were not flattered and a few years ago they favored bumper stickers that read, "Welcome to Cannon Beach Mall. It used to be a nice residential community."

It still is.

Upscale motels and lodges line the beach and the main drag, Hemlock Street. Otherwise single-story cottages dominate Cannon Beach, many built almost a century ago.

There are trendy shops, good restaurants, a thriving bookshop but only one grocery store. The building height limit in the residential area is 28 feet. Cannon Beach resembles Edmonds in this and a lot of other ways. And there are obvious differences.

We have rapid transit via ferries, trains and busses.

Cannon Beach has tsunami evacuation signs and bovine sirens. When the civil defense system was first installed the Cannon Beach Fire Department decided to test the loudspeakers by programming them to moo like a herd of cows.

The cows let the townspeople know it is only a test.

When the real sirens sound the residents are supposed to head for the hills.

A tsunami triggered by a 1964 earthquake in Alaska wiped out a main bridge in Cannon Beach and claimed four lives.

And there is the potential for a catastrophic tsunami triggered by the collapse of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, an enormous fault line in the Pacific, not far off the Oregon Coast.

Potentially, the resultant waves could cross the Washington coast in the gap between Long Beach and Tokeland, which is why tsunami warnings and evacuation signs are also posted around Willipa Bay, heart of this state's oyster industry.

Edmonds is considered to be at low risk for damage from either a tsunami or a seiche, an aquatic disturbance occurring in a body of water partially enclosed by land, like Elliott Bay.

True, sand deposits indicate that at some time in history Cultus Bay was visited by a tsunami or seiche because of its location on the South Whidbey Fault.

But there are no disaster drills conducted at local schools as there are at Cannon Beach Elementary.

Three times a year duck-and-cover earthquake drills are conducted there, followed by an orderly parade onto the playground where the oldest and youngest students pair up then march across a bridge and up a hill to reach an elevation above the height of potential tidal waves.

An equivalent evacuation route in Edmonds would take you past the library and Driftwood Theater and to the top of Main Street.

In our instance, the tsunami all-clear might be sounded by crowing roosters. Mooing cows would sound too much like the Kingston Ferry.