NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

MORNING REPORT

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

INCIDENTS

National Park of American Samoa

Small Quake-Spawned Tsunami Leaves Park Undamaged

The massive earthquake that struck off the Chilean coast Friday night led to the issuance of a major tsunami warning to all Pacific Islands, including American Samoa. The tsunami was scheduled to hit American Samoa at 8:51 a.m., providing approximately 12 hours warning. Because of last September's tsunami, which caused extensive destruction and loss of life in Samoa, both the park and territory reacted strongly to the alert. All park staff were alerted between 2:30 and 6 a.m. ICS was activated, the Pacific Command Center (dispatch at Hawaii Volcanoes) was alerted, and region was notified. Maintenance crews removed the generators and fuel from the park's sea level storage at Pago Plaza, and other preparations were completed. At about 9:30 a.m., a small, barely visible, 2.3-foot tsunami surge reached the islands, doing no damage. Park staff were again contacted and found to be okay. [Mike Reynolds, Superintendent]

OTHER NEWS

The following stories are among those in today's edition of InsideNPS:

African Burial Ground NM - The new visitor center for African Burial Ground National Monument opened on Saturday, February 27th. Among the speakers was Deputy Director Mickey Fearn.

Special Park Uses - An updated edition of Director's Order 53 was approved by Director Jarvis on February 23rd and is now available. A link is provided.

Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services - In spite of the major winter storms affecting the Mid-Atlantic region last month, a total of 29 students successfully completed a course on the command and general staff function for local incident management teams at NCTC in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

Assateague Island NS - Regina Jones-Brake is retiring. In a career that spanned four decades, one Bicentennial and three Olympiads, her journey through America's national parks has taken her to all three coasts, national icons, natural areas, the home of Harry S Truman, and the smallest site in the National Park System. Photo.

Timpanogos Cave NM - Gary Togstad will retire on March 1st after almost 36 years of federal service. Photo.

To see these and other stories posted on InsideNPS (or NPS Digest, its public version), click on one or the other of the following links (please note that not all stories in the former appear in the latter):

NPS employees: HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index" http://inside.nps.gov/index.cfm?handler=index

Non-NPS employees: HYPERLINK "http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/" http://home.nps.gov/applications/digest/

NPS serious incident submission standards can be found at the following web site: HYPERLINK "http://inside.nps.gov/notify" http://inside.nps.gov/notify

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Prepared by the Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services, Washington Office, with the support of the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Edited by Bill Halainen ( HYPERLINK "mailto:Bill_Halainen@nps.gov" Bill_Halainen@nps.gov).

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