We had an earthquake "wake up call" early this morning in Alaska from an M 7.9 quake out in the Gulf of Alaska. My wife and I were woken up from a sound sleep by the cell phone emergency alert for a tsunami warning. Due to the local geography/hydrography Anchorage isn't threatened by tsunamis, but most of coastal Alaska is. The warning system seemed to work quite well. People in most threatened areas got the warning and evacuated to higher ground. As it turned out, this was a strike slip quake, which doesn't (usually) generate a tsunami, so the warning was quickly downgraded. Overall, the whole system of cell phone and media alerts, sirens, etc seemed to work well to get the warning out in a timely manner, with some exceptions (see below).

One note about cell phone emergency alerts. There is an FCC requirement that cell providers must be able to issue emergency alerts, and the larger providers can do this. However, this requires some technical upgrades to the hardware, and some smaller providers have been given more time to comply. A friend of mine who uses one of these providers DID NOT get the alert! It is worth checking to see if your cell provider can do this.

Local press report: Lucky break: 7.9 quake in Gulf of Alaska was type that doesn’t usually generate big tsunamis