By the end of last week, we were able to run waves ranging in height from 10cm to 60cm. For each height wave we ran three trials and collected data from the pressure sensors mounted on the blue commercial buildings. The data for the 10, 20, 30, and 50cm waves was sent from the pressure transducer to the computer where it was recorded using LabView and transfered into Excel for analysis. Here, we could sort, convert, and plot our data so that we may draw some conclusions for our study. We are still in the process of analyzing the data we've gathered, but we can already see that we may come to some interesting and unexpected conclusions.
On Thursday of last week we had the opportunity to travel up to Seaside, Oregon to check out the city we had modeled. It was very humbling to see the city in person especially after subjecting our version of the town with waves throughout the week. After seeing what a wave in the lab looks like in relation to our model it was a bit scary to see how high the water would be in relation to the coastal infrastructure in real life. Also, during our trip we planned to walk the tsunami evacuation route to see what it would be like (very roughly) to travel the path. The plan was to follow the designated tsunami evacuation signage and pretend that we were tourists who didn't know which way to go to get to higher ground. We began just a block off Broadway and about two blocks from the seawall. The tsunami evacuation route signs were very small and difficult to follow, as we eventually lost them and ended up in a neighborhood and not at Seaside Heights Elementary School like we expected. The signs were hard to see and often contradicted one another. If anything comes from our study, it would be encouraged that these signs be improved to facilitate evacuation in case of an emergency. Our brisk walk took us, three able-bodied young people, about 25 minutes and though we rushed we traveled under the most calm, uneventful circumstances. We did not encounter any destruction or obstacles that would most likely be present in an actual emergency situation and we still would have barely made it to safety in time. Obviously in an actual crisis adrenaline would be working on our side, but we were able to see that the evacuation route would be very difficult to traverse if one was not in fairly good physical condition.
On Thursday of last week we had the opportunity to travel up to Seaside, Oregon to check out the city we had modeled. It was very humbling to see the city in person especially after subjecting our version of the town with waves throughout the week. After seeing what a wave in the lab looks like in relation to our model it was a bit scary to see how high the water would be in relation to the coastal infrastructure in real life. Also, during our trip we planned to walk the tsunami evacuation route to see what it would be like (very roughly) to travel the path. The plan was to follow the designated tsunami evacuation signage and pretend that we were tourists who didn't know which way to go to get to higher ground. We began just a block off Broadway and about two blocks from the seawall. The tsunami evacuation route signs were very small and difficult to follow, as we eventually lost them and ended up in a neighborhood and not at Seaside Heights Elementary School like we expected. The signs were hard to see and often contradicted one another. If anything comes from our study, it would be encouraged that these signs be improved to facilitate evacuation in case of an emergency. Our brisk walk took us, three able-bodied young people, about 25 minutes and though we rushed we traveled under the most calm, uneventful circumstances. We did not encounter any destruction or obstacles that would most likely be present in an actual emergency situation and we still would have barely made it to safety in time. Obviously in an actual crisis adrenaline would be working on our side, but we were able to see that the evacuation route would be very difficult to traverse if one was not in fairly good physical condition.
