Community Commentary:

As Newport Beach residents know, the earthquake that occurred off the coast of Chile this weekend triggered tsunami notifications across the Pacific. Many here monitored the news, and several have asked why the city activated the AlertOC system after the swell was predicted to reach the city’s beaches. The short answer — the city received two sets of information. Initial reports called for a small swell (with no significant impact) to occur shortly after noon. It did.

A report received after that “event” called for a larger swell to reach here later in the afternoon. That report turned out to be incorrect, and residents called us saying “thanks for the alert — but wasn’t it an hour too late?” Well, sort of.

Early in the morning of Feb. 27, we were notified of and monitored a tsunami advisory (different than a watch or a warning) for about six hours. Personnel from multiple departments here tracked the situation using the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The Harbor Patrol and the County EOC were also in communication.

The initial tsunami advisory stated that any swell in our area could be up to 2.5 feet and would arrive about 12:12 p.m. City personnel monitored reports as the swell moved up the coast toward California. Based on that data, we determined that a large swell was not coming toward Newport Beach, and therefore, an AlertOC activation would have been overkill. As a precautionary measure, however, the city placed “spotters” on high ground and at our Lifeguard Headquarters. Police officers cleared the beach and were standing by at evacuation sites.

As anticipated, a small surge occurred shortly after noon.

Shortly after 1 p.m., the city received information from the Orange County Harbor Patrol that the U.S. Coast Guard had advised them that a 6- to 8-foot swell could be imminent in the Long Beach-Los Angeles area. County Harbor Patrol staff advised they were evacuating their headquarters, and did so.

Based on this new information and not taking time to verify its accuracy given the potential danger, the city decided to activate the AlertOC System. An alert was sent to everyone in the community (we thought uplands residents might be dissuaded from wandering down to the beach to see what was going on).

Later on Saturday afternoon, we realized that the Coast Guard’s information was probably incorrect (and likely intended for Hawaii). It should not have been sent to us. However, the safety of the community is a top priority, and we will continue to use an abundance of caution when making this type of decision.

We do have some lessons to be learned here, but I think we acted correctly based on what we knew and when we knew it. I’m always interested in residents’ thoughts to the contrary, though. Feel free to e-mail me at dkiff@newportbeachca.gov. Oh, and remember that the second tier of our tsunami protection — a siren system — was approved last month by the Coastal Commission and goes up soon.

Stay dry.

DAVE KIFF is Newport Beach’s city manager.