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Tsunami Advisory Glitch Sparks Fear On Coast

This week's Samoan tsunami exposed a flaw in the National Weather Service's mapping system that warns of tsunami dangers along the Washington coast, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reported.

A glitch caused a Weather Service map to show that Pacific County was under a tsunami advisory on Tuesday even though the advisory did not apply to the county.

The advisory stopped a training exercise in which 22 agencies were preparing for a tsunami.

Pacific County Emergency Management Director Stephanie Fritts immediately ran through all the weather service bulletins. It appeared any waves hitting Pacific County did not warrant an advisory.

The mistaken advisory led some people to call 911 in a panic.

"I just got a tsunami warning message from NOAA. What do you guys have on that?" asked one 911 caller.

"The message for Pacific County was an error," answered a dispatcher. "It's not correct."

The Weather Service could not immediately take Pacific County off the tsunami advisory map, officials told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Richard Thompson.

"They told us it couldn't be fixed (Tuesday) so we did everything we could to let our citizens know it was inaccurate information," said Denise Rowlett of Pacific County Emergency Management.

Waves from the Samoan tsunami did reach the Pacific County coast -- but they were 2 to 5 inches high, officials said.

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