Dear Families,

I’m writing today to provide a brief summary of how AUSD responded to today’s Tsunami Warning from the National Weather Service (NWS) at 10:50 am.

First, we know that this was a concerning situation for many of you, and I want to reassure you that our emergency team convened as soon as the NWS alert came across our phones.

We immediately contacted the Alameda Police Department and the Alameda Fire Department and sent members of our team to the City’s Emergency Operations Center so that we would have access to the most up-to-date and authoritative information.

Out of an abundance of caution, at 11:25 we issued a Shelter in Place order to all of our schools to facilitate communications and logistics if authorities told us to evacuate schools.

At 11:40 am the City’s Emergency Operations Team directed us to evacuate both Encinal Jr. & Sr. High School and Paden Elementary School. This was due to the two schools’ coastal location, as well as the City’s policy that schools have a priority for evacuation. The direction from the EOC was specific to Paden and Encinal based on their most current information.

This is why only those two schools began the evacuation process.

As such, we immediately directed Encinal to evacuate to College of Alameda and Paden to evacuate to Franklin Elementary School, both areas deemed safer and less exposed to the coastal areas of concern.

At 12:06 pm, we began receiving alerts that the Tsunami Warning had been lifted, and we told schools to end the shelter in place. At that time, Encinal students were already at the College of Alameda, and students in grades TK, K, and 1 were either at or moving toward Franklin.

Due to the complexity of reunifying students and families, we decided to release Encinal students from COA for the day. We also decided to keep the Paden students at Franklin Elementary School.

Throughout this time, we were both working the explicit and potential challenges, and also sending frequent texts and emails to families so they would know what was happening, where their students were, and what was happening with afterschool programs.

We were also working throughout the incident to clarify the latest information and direction from state and local authorities via the city’s emergency operations center which again we sent district representatives to for real time communication and information.

Again, we know that this was likely a concerning incident for many of you. Please know that your students’ safety was foremost in our mind throughout the warning and as we collaborated with our afterschool partners on staffing and locations.

Our team will debrief this incident internally, and subsequently with Alameda Fire, Police, and City staff in the coming days to refine and continuously improve our preparedness and response to potential emergencies like the one we confronted today.

Pasquale Scuderi
Superintendent
Alameda Unified School District