ILWACO — Vertical evacuation towers? Reinforced rooftop refuges? Relocation to higher, safer ground?

Those are just a few of the options on the table that were presented at a pair of community forums that the Ocean Beach School District hosted in Ilwaco and Ocean Park on June 12, which focused on discussing with the public about ways to plausibly keep students and staff safe at Ocean Park Elementary and Long Beach Elementary in the event of a tsunami. Both OPE and LBE are located squarely in the inundation zone and on more liquefiable soils.

A tsunami triggered by a massive Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake could reach the schools in as soon as 15-20 minutes — certainly not enough time to reach safe ground in Long Beach, according to models from geologists with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. It would also be a close call for students and staff in Ocean Park to make their way to a sliver of land near Z Street, which is projected to be just elevated and inland enough to provide refuge. During previous evacuation drills, it has taken fifth graders about 20 minutes to reach the area in question.

OBSD last fall received a scoping grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to identify potential solutions at its two elementary schools in the event of an earthquake and subsequent tsunami, as well as determine how feasible they actually are. Last Thursday’s forums featured presentations from Degenkolb Engineers, a Seattle-based structural engineering company, and Rice Fergus Miller, a Bremerton-based architecture firm, which OBSD used the funds from FEMA to hire.

“All we’ve done at this point is evaluate those situations — and some options that go with that — that we’d like to present to you today,” said OBSD Superintendent Amy Huntley. “Very few decisions have been made, [but] the board did unanimously decide that they are not interested in a consolidated elementary school campus. The decisions in front of you definitely are going to affect both campuses, but they don’t have to do the same things. There’s a lot of options on both ends.”

These community meetings come amid a yearslong push by the district to secure significant funding through the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to build a seismically safe campus for grades 6-12 in Ilwaco. Any grant funding that is awarded would cover at least two-thirds of the overall construction cost, if not much more, although OBSD officials have cautioned that some level of local support may still be necessary for facilities or upgrades that the state won’t cover.

Learning from others

Cale Ash, a structural engineer at Degenkolb, said much has been learned from other countries that have endured tsunamis in recent history, namely Japan in 2011 when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck 45 miles off its eastern coast. The earthquake caused a tsunami that reached heights upwards of 130 feet, and the death toll in 2021 was pegged at 19,759, with more than 6,000 injured and 2,500 missing.

Ash played footage of that 2011 tsunami for meeting attendees, which showed wood-framed buildings being destroyed and swept away. “The only buildings that are going to remain are reinforced concrete or steel-framed buildings — buildings that are really robust and resilient…any wood construction is typically destroyed in an event of this magnitude.”

Before-and-after overhead shots of one coastal neighborhood with about 800 households in the city of Sendai showed that the only building still standing in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami was a concrete-reinforced elementary school that had been outfitted with a rooftop evacuation tower. The school, which has since been preserved as a memorial, was located just 700 meters from the coast.

Considered one of the most tsunami-prepared countries in the world even before 2011, Ash said that Japan has only continued to beef up its resiliencies for future events. In the first six years following the tsunami, for example, another 13 vertical evacuation towers had already been erected in Sendai.

By comparison, only a small handful of evacuation towers or other tsunami-minded upgrades have actually been built along the entire Washington coast in the 14 years since that event — and none on the Long Beach Peninsula, which models have shown will likely be one of the hardest hit areas along the entire Pacific Coast.

Long Beach options

Degenkolb and Rice Fergus Miller previously held an initial workshop with school officials and representatives from several companies and organizations, including the Washington Emergency Management Division, geotechnical engineering firm Haley & Aldrich, and Construction Services Group (CSG), a program operated by Educational Service District 112 that provides school districts with pre-construction and construction services.

Attendees at that first workshop were tasked with “generating a wide range of ideas” for how students and school personnel at OPE and LBE could survive a tsunami, according to Becky Wall, an interior designer with Rice Fergus Miller. Ideas were indeed abound, and the list — aside from the more conventional and feasible options that will be discussed — included the schools procuring personal tsunami pods that made regional headlines in the 2010s, or erecting towering seawalls aimed at withstanding and shielding the schools from the surge of waves.

They were also charged with developing criteria for how to evaluate that buffet of options, with lives saved being the key threshold. Other factors taken into account included cost, feasibility, ease of use, impact on the school district, and political support. Options were then scored on a scale from 0-5, with 5 being the best.

The scenario that scored the highest among options deemed viable at LBE, receiving a score of 3.91, was to relocate the school to higher ground on the south end of the peninsula — namely in the area of Ilwaco around the current middle and high school buildings, where OBSD already owns the property.

While the cost of building a new school would be higher than erecting an evacuation tower on or near the existing LBE site, it would not increase annual maintenance costs for the district and would be the most effective option when it comes to actually saving the maximum number of student and staff lives by eliminating the tsunami risk altogether. There is also the real possibility of securing funding from the state via recently enacted grant programs that would pay for the majority of the cost to construct the new building outside of the inundation zone.

Receiving a score of 3.67, the option that had the next highest rating was to build an evacuation tower on LBE’s current campus. While it would be less expensive than relocating or rebuilding the school and have a shorter construction time, it would reduce the usable campus space at the school, require additional ongoing maintenance and would not improve OBSD’s overall mission. It is also less clear as to whether there would be an opportunity for state funding if this route was chosen, which would put the financial burden squarely on the backs of the local community.

The last option, scored at 3.25, calls for demolishing the existing LBE building and rebuilding on the same site with a beefed up structure that is capable of supporting a rooftop vertical evacuation. While the building would be able to serve as both a school and tsunami refuge, Wall said the added structural design requirements would lead to higher costs — again without any assurance of state funding to lower the local burden — and the reconstruction would severely disrupt school operations.

Ocean Park scenarios

Like LBE, the option that scored the highest for OPE, at 3.82, was to relocate the school to higher ground on the north end of the peninsula, not in Ilwaco. But unlike a potential LBE relocation, the school district does not already own any land in question that could house the new school building.

While the impact to district operations and maintenance would be limited and it would eliminate the risk from a tsunami, it also carries the highest cost of any of the Ocean Park options — even though there is a strong chance of receiving significant state funding — due to requiring a full rebuild and new infrastructure, including utilities. It’s also not known whether the local community, particularly in Ocean Park, would be supportive of leaving the existing school site, even if the new school was still located on the north end of the peninsula.

The next highest scoring scenario for OPE was to build an evacuation tower on the existing school campus, receiving a score of 3.67. It received a slightly better score than if a tower was constructed on a parcel across the street, which clocked in at 3.58, due to being easier for students and staff to access although it would reduce the usable campus space. A tower would be less expensive than relocating or rebuilding the school and have a shorter construction time, but it would require ongoing maintenance while remaining in the inundation zone.

Demolishing the existing OPE building and rebuilding with a rooftop evacuation on the same site earned a score of 3.25, and had the same benefits and trade-offs as LBE: A dual-use facility for both learning and refuge, but with high costs due structurally complex requirements and questions over whether the state would chip in financially.

At 2.95, the lowest scoring but cheapest option was to improve the existing evacuation route from OPE to the higher ground in the area of Z Street by adding better signage, surfacing and other support such as bridges. While described as “highly feasible,” it offers no physical refuge if an evacuation is delayed and the conditions of the route will still be dependent on any damage caused by the earthquake.

Rigorous discussion

The floor was opened to discussion following the presentation, and it took no time for the elephant in the room to get brought up: Why wasn’t the consolidation and relocation of both LBE and OPE to higher ground in Ilwaco included as one of the “viable” options considering it was the only one that actually scored above a four, asked Ilwaco City Councilor Matt Lessnau, who has children attending OBSD schools.

School board member Mark Mansell, who represents a north peninsula-based seat, said “the message was pretty clear and it continues to be clear” that the Ocean Park community expects to have a school located on the north end. “That’s been loudly heard by the board.”

Lessnau followed up by asking if the board valued having community support “far higher” than all the other benefits that a consolidated campus in Ilwaco seemingly provides in terms of cost, feasibility, impact to district operations, and lives saved.

Putting it more bluntly, outgoing school board chair Tiffany Turner said the board doesn’t believe it can pass a bond without the political support of the Ocean Park community, pointing to the miserable performance of the 2022 bond, which received its lowest levels of support on the peninsula’s north end.

“And it was not just the bond passage, it was almost every meeting we’ve been reminded that we cannot pass a bond or levy without the support of the Ocean Park community,” Turner said, adding she personally agrees with having a consolidated Ilwaco campus. “The Ocean Park community loudly supports keeping their school in Ocean Park, and it was my understanding that there was a pretty big crowd at Ocean Park today…for this same presentation.”

On that note, Huntley said that only one of the 30 attendees at the meeting in Ocean Park earlier that afternoon were supportive of a consolidated Ilwaco campus. Lessnau said he understood the need to have strong community support, but believes the board’s decision to essentially not even bring the idea of a consolidated campus forward for the public’s consideration makes it seem like community support is the key criteria being used rather than taking a balanced approach.

Joan Porter, an Ocean Park resident running for a seat on the school board who led a campaign in support of passing OBSD’s two levies in 2024, believes “there’s a lot of life that’s breathed into a community when there’s a local school,” and said “there’s kind of a message” being sent if all of the district’s schools were to be located in Ilwaco.

“My understanding, in talking to some of the folks who have been there forever, is that since 1969 a bond has only been passed when the Ocean Park school is open, and every time there is a threat of consolidation and closing it, bonds fail,” Porter said, noting a majority of the peninsula’s population lives on the north end.

“You can’t just cater to the southern end, you have to have some life [on the northern end] as well. Plus, schools are an important part of a healthy community and we intend to keep it that way.”

Marilyn Sheldon, a Nahcotta resident and former school board member, also cautioned against saying that just because people don’t currently have a child or grandchild attending an OBSD school does not mean they don’t care about student wellbeing.

“I would say a lot of these people who are voting and attending these meetings and voicing an opinion, they’ve gone to school here or had a loved one who did or are going to have grandchildren going to school here,” Sheldon said. “Just because they don’t have a student sitting in a seat right now does not mean they do not care and are not invested in what happens to every single child in this district — and we constantly hear it discounted.”

Forging a path

As these conversations and discussions regarding what, if anything, to do with the elementary schools continue to play out in the months — and perhaps years — ahead, Mansell said there are four things that must be kept on the forefront:

Ensuring that the district receives as much financial support from the state as possible for a 6-12 campus with an optimal learning environment, and recognizing that some level of local funding will likely still be needed;

Determining what level of work is necessary in order for the district get another 30-plus years of life out of its elementary schools, which are facing growing maintenance and operational issues;

Identifying the right plan to improve the life safety of students and staff regarding the threat of an earthquake and tsunami, which this meeting was focused on;

Addressing facilities such as the seismically vulnerable stadium and bus barn, which will not be eligible for state funding.

“All four of those threads, we have to keep moving along. All of them are in different processes and all of them are going to require some level of bonding, which then inserts the political component,” Mansell said, noting that discussions will need to be had over whether all of those issues should be addressed in either one or multiple bond packages.

No matter what approach ends up being taken, Turner said supporters will need to contribute their time to boost community outreach by knocking on doors and speaking with neighbors. Although many public meetings and forums were held in the lead up to the election, the 2022 bond proposal was hampered by a purported lack of community engagement.

The political environment in any given moment is difficult to forecast; Sheldon noted that the bond went from failing with not even 25% of the vote in April 2022, to both levies passing with more than 60% of the vote in February 2024. She said she asked those attendees at the Ocean Park meeting earlier in the day to take the time and consider which of the options presented to them they would vote yes on.

“If you were asked to fund one-third of a project, would you be willing to fund one-third of a tower, or would you be willing to fund one-third of two towers, or one tower and one school, or two schools?” Sheldon said. “Because that’s going to affect how much that bond costs, so please support what you’re willing to vote yes on in a bond and put your tax dollars behind.”