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OSU Sea Grant specialist offers Depoe Bay outreach tools for hotels, visitors and non-English speakers
Summary
Oregon Sea Grant/OSU extension staff described outreach tools—address-search evacuation routing, hotel room evacuation maps, a student-built virtual-reality education app and targeted outreach for non-English-speaking communities—to help Depoe Bay improve visitor-focused tsunami readiness.
A coastal hazards outreach specialist working with Oregon Sea Grant and Oregon State University told the Depoe Bay Resilience Committee about tools and outreach programs to raise preparedness among visitors, hospitality businesses and non-English-speaking residents.
The specialist (introduced in the meeting as a Sea Grant/OSU extension coastal hazards liaison) described several initiatives: custom evacuation maps designed for hotel rooms and vacation rentals, an online address-based routing tool that returns turn-by-turn walking directions to high ground, a student-created virtual-reality app for teaching evacuation planning in plain language, and partnerships to tailor messaging for non-English-speaking communities.
Why it matters: Depoe Bay has a high proportion of visitors and day-trippers in peak seasons; committee members and presenters agreed that signage, short room-ready evacuation cards and targeted multilingual outreach are essential. The extension specialist said Sea Grant and OSU can help identify grant opportunities and provide technical review for proposals and outreach products.
Details presented included: a prototype hotel-room evacuation map program (nine hotels expressed interest to date), a story-map resource that aggregates agency guidance and case studies, and a community-focused mapping exercise used with a local Hispanic community group to show workplaces, meeting points and evacuation choices. The liaison said Sea Grant maintains a coastwide resource newsletter and can help connect communities to researchers and funding opportunities under the Cascadia-related research hub.
Committee members and staff discussed logistics for producing and distributing the hotel-room maps and for adding wayfinding kiosks in high-tourist locations. Presenters confirmed that DOGAMI and local emergency management fund and supply some signage work through NOAA tsunami mitigation program support; they said producing many custom maps is feasible and that Sea Grant can help with outreach design and grant pipeline support.
What comes next: Sea Grant staff offered to help the committee identify grants, draft application language, and arrange follow-up workshops on evacuation-drift mapping and multilingual outreach. Committee members asked Sea Grant to coordinate with DOGAMI and county emergency management on a plan to place signage and distribute hotel-room materials.
Ending: The committee thanked Sea Grant for the resources and requested copies of the hotel-mapping template and the outreach packet for community distribution.
