Subject: U.S. Pacific Command had warning before tsunami hit Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 23:49:11 -0600 Message-ID: <B14120EE5C432443B21102F7925DAD0201420297@COKE.uwec.edu> From: "Grossman, Zoltan C." <GROSSMZC@uwec.edu>
Geography saved U.S. base from tsunami; Diego Garcia located near
deep-sea trench
HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) CNN, Tuesday, January 4, 2005
-- Location and underwater topography helped protect the strategic U.S.
military base on the remote island of Diego Garcia from the killer
tsunami that raced across the Indian Ocean.
.........
Diego Garcia is nearly 2,000 miles from the epicenter of the magnitude
9.0 quake that caused the tsunami.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii notified the U.S. Pacific
Command soon after the quake, said a spokeswoman for the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Foreknowledge of A Natural Disaster:
Washington was aware that a deadly Tidal Wave
was building up in the Indian Ocean
by Michel Chossudovsky
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO412C.html
www.globalresearch.ca <http://globalresearch.ca> 29 December
2004
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO412C.html
(Revised Dec 31, with the release of more information as well as
satellite images of affected areas)
The US Military and the State Department were given advanced warning.
America's Navy base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean
was notified.
Why were fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand not provided with
the same warnings as the US Navy and the US State Department?
Why did the US State Department remain mum on the existence of an
impending catastrophe?
With a modern communications system, why did the information not get
out? By email, telephone, fax, satellite TV... ?
It could have saved the lives of thousands of people.
The earthquake was a Magnitude 9.0 on the Richter scale, among the
highest in recorded history. US authorities had initially recorded 8.0
on the Richter scale.
As confirmed by several reports, US scientists in Hawaii, had advanced
knowledge regarding an impending catastrophe, but failed to contact
their Asian counterparts.
Charles McCreery of the Pacific Warning Center in Hawaii confirmed that
his team tried to get in touch with his counterparts in Asia. According
to McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's center in Honolulu, the team did its utmost to contact
the countries. (The NOAA in Hawaii's Report
<http://www.prh.noaa.gov/itic/> at
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2357.htm ).
We started thinking about who we could call. We talked to the
State Department Operations Center and to the military. We called
embassies. We talked to the navy in Sri Lanka, any local government
official we could get hold of," Hirshorn said. "We were fairly careful
about who we called. We wanted to call people who could help."
(quoted in
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Dec/29/ln/ln05p.html )
Note the tone of the first Bulletin above. It downplays an imminent
catastrophe. It points to a Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake, subsequently
revised to 8.5 and then 9. (See the texts of all three Bulletins below
this article).
The Bulletin fails to underscore the seriousness of the situation. It
states in a routine fashion. "There is no Tsunami Warning or Watch in
Effect" [in the Pacific]. It does not make any statement as to what
might happen in the Indian Ocean. Neither does it acknowledge that the
country which is worst hit, namely Indonesia, is a member of the Pacific
tsunami warning system along with Thailand and Singapore.
In fact, the Bulletin is grossly misleading on the extent of the
catastrophe caused by the earthquake and the tsunami which had already
hit Indonesia prior to the release of the Bulletin (01.14 GMT), on the
North Sumatra Coastline and in Banda, Aceh. To state that there is no
tsunami or tsunami warning is mistaken. It had already happened!
We Did Not Know!
Nine (9.0) on the Richter scale: The Director of the Hawaii Warning
Center stated that they did not know that the earthquake would generate
a deadly seismic wave until it had hit Sri Lanka, more than one and a
half hours later, at 2.30 GMT. (see Timeline below)
"Not until the deadly wave hit Sri Lanka and the scientists in
Honolulu saw news reports of the damage there did they recognize what
was happening...'Then we knew there was something moving across the
Indian Ocean,' said Charles McCreery. (quoted in the NYT, 28 Dec 2004 ).
It is impossible that the movement of the seismic wave could have gone
unnoticed following the initial devastating impact of the tidal waves in
Aceh and North Sumatra immediately after 1.00 GMT on the 26th.
Moreover, according to expert opinion, known to the scientists who were
monitoring seismic activity, an earthquake of more than 6.5 on the
Richter scale has the potential of triggering a tsunami. In other words,
there should have been no hesitation by scientists or government
officials on the likely impacts of an earthquake which was initially
assessed at 8.0 on the Richter scale.
Moreover, the Hawaii Center's statement is at odds with the Timeline of
the seismic wave disaster (see below), which no doubt was also being
monitored on a continuous basis, once it hit the Indonesian and Thai
coastlines by satellite imaging using the Global Positioning System
(GPS). These satellite images are available to a number of agencies
including the US military and intelligence. It should be noted, however,
that the energy of a tsunami is transferred through open water, it is
therefore not easily detectable in the Ocean.
It is the extreme seismic activity which provides advance warning prior
to the tsunami reaching the coastline. But as pointed out above, the
tsunami had already hit the Indonesian coast shortly shortly after 01.00
GMT:
"In the open ocean, tsunamis would not be felt by ships because
the wavelength would be hundreds of miles long, with an amplitude of
only a few feet. This would also make them unnoticeable from the air. As
the waves approach the coast, their speed decreases and their amplitude
increases. Unusual wave heights have been known to be over 100 feet
high. However, waves that are 10 to 20 feet high can be very destructive
and cause many deaths or injuries." (see
http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/0,1082,0_592_,00.html#feel )
Thailand was hit almost an hour before Sri Lanka and the news reports
including photographic evidence were already out. Surely, these reports
out of Thailand were known to the scientists in Hawaii, not to mention
the office of Sec. Colin Powell, well before the tidal wave reached Sri
Lanka.
''We wanted to try to do something, but without a plan in place
then, it was not an effective way to issue a warning, or to have it
acted upon,'' Dr. McCreery said. ''There would have still been some time
-- not a lot of time, but some time -- if there was something that could
be done in Madagascar, or on the coast of Africa.''
The above statement by Director of the Hawaii Center is also
inconsistent.
The seismic wave reached the East African coastline several hours after
it reached The Maldives islands. According to news reports, Male, the
capital of the Maldives was hit three hours after the earthquake, at
approximately 4.00 GMT. By that time everybody around the World knew.
It is worth noting that the US Navy was fully aware of the deadly
seismic wave, because the Navy was on the Pacific Warning Center's list
of contacts. The Military also has its own advanced systems including
satellite images, which enables it to monitor in a very precise way the
movement of the seismic wave in real time. In other words, in all
likelihood the US Military had information on an impending catastrophe.
Moreover, America's strategic Naval base on the island of Diego Garcia
had also been notified. Although directly in the path of the tidal wave
(see animated chart below), the Diego Garcia military base reported "no
damage".
"One of the few places in the Indian Ocean that got the message
of the quake was Diego Garcia, a speck of an island with a United States
Navy base, because the Pacific warning center's contact list includes
the Navy. Finding the appropriate people in Sri Lanka or India was
harder." (NYT, 28 Dec 2004, emphasis added)
Now how hard is it to pick up the phone and call Sri Lanka?
According to Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning
Center.
"We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that
part of the world."
Only after the first waves hit Sri Lanka did workers at National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre
[PTWC] and others in Hawaii start making phone calls to US diplomats in
Madagascar and Mauritius in an attempt to head off further disaster.
"We didn't have a contact in place where you could just pick up
the phone," Dolores Clark, spokeswoman for the International Tsunami
Information Centre in Hawaii said. "We were starting from scratch."
These statements on the surface are ambiguous, since several Indian
Ocean Asian countries are in fact members of the Tsunami Warning System.
There are 26 member countries of the International Coordination Group
for the Tsunami Warning System <http://www.prh.noaa.gov/itic/> ,
including Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. All these countries would
normally be in the address book of the PTWC, which works in close
coordination with its sister organization the ICGTWS
<http://www.prh.noaa.gov/itic/> , which has its offices at the
headquarters of the National Weather Service Pacific Region Headquarters
<http://www.prh.noaa.gov> in downtown Honolulu.
The mandate of the ICGTWS is to "assist member states in establishing
national warning systems, and makes information available on current
technologies for tsunami warning systems." Australia and Indonesia were
notified.
The US Congress is to investigate
The US Congress is to investigate why the US government did not notify
all the Indian Ocean nations in the affected area:
"Only two countries in the affected region, Indonesia and
Australia, received the warning.. Yet the tsunami took as long as two
hours to reach some countries, and NOAA's critics say timely even
unofficial warnings might have allowed people in coastal areas to flee."
Maine Senator Olympia Snowe is "exploring and looking into why NOAA was
not able to provide this valuable, life-saving information to the 11
affected nations," (quoted in Boston Globe, 29 Dec 2004):
The issue of the Ocean Sensors is a Red Herring
"Although Thailand belongs to the international tsunami-warning
network, its west coast does not have the system's wave sensors mounted
on ocean buoys.
The northern tip of the earthquake fault is located near the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and tsunamis appear to have rushed eastward
toward the Thai resort of Phuket.
"They had no tidal gauges and they had no warning," said Waverly
Person, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Centre in
Golden, Colorado, U.S., which monitors seismic activity worldwide.
"There are no buoys in the Indian Ocean and that's where this tsunami
occurred."" (Hindu, 27 Dec 2004)
The Hawaii Center was not able to warn them because they had no sensors
in the Indian Ocean: That argument is a Red Herring.
We are not dealing with information based on Ocean sensors: the
emergency warning was transmitted in the immediate wake of the
earthquake (based on seismic data). The earthquake took place at 00.58
GMT on the 26th of Dec. The report was transmitted to The State
Department and the US Navy following the earthquake.
With modern communications, the information of an impending disaster
could have been sent around the World in a matter of minutes, by email,
by telephone, by fax, not to mention by live satellite Television.
Coastguards, municipalities, local governments, tourist hotels, etc.
could have been warned.
According to Tsunami Society President Prof. Tad Murty of the University
of Manitoba:
'there's no reason for a single individual to get killed in a
tsunami,' since most areas had anywhere from 25 minutes to four hours
before a wave hit. So, once again, because of indifference and
corruption thousands of innocent people have died needlessly." (Calgary
Sun, 28 Dec 2004)
While the above quote is an overstatement, given the nature and
magnitude of the catastrophe, it should nonetheless be taken seriously.
Key Questions
1. Why were the Indian Ocean countries' governments not informed?
Were there "guidelines" from the US military or the State
Department regarding the release of an advanced warning?
According to the statement of the Hawaii based PTWC, advanced
warning was released but on a selective basis. Indonesia was already
hit, so the warning was in any event redundant and Australia was several
thousand miles from the epicentre of the earthquake and was, therefore,
under no immediate threat.
2. Did US authorities monitoring seismographic data have knowledge of
the earthquake prior to its actual occurrence at 00.57 GMT on the 26th
of December?
The question is whether there were indications of abnormal
seismic activity prior to 01.00 GMT on the 26th of Dec.
The US Geological Survey confirmed that the earthquake which
triggered the tidal wave measured 9.0 on the Richter scale and was the
fourth largest quake since 1900. In such cases, one would expect
evidence of abnormal seismic activity before the actual occurrence of a
major earthquake.
3. Why is the US military Calling the Shots on Humanitarian Relief
Why in the wake of the disaster, is the US military (rather than
civilian humanitarian/aid organizations operating under UN auspices)
taking a lead role?
The US Pacific Command has been designated to coordinate the
channeling of emergency relief? Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Rusty Blackman,
commander of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa, has
been designated to lead the emergency relief program.
Lieutenant General Blackman was previously Chief of Staff for
Coalition Forces Land Component Command, responsible for leading the
Marines into Baghdad during "Operation Iraqi Freedom."
Three "Marine disaster relief assessment teams" under Blackman's
command have been sent to Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
US military aircraft are conducting observation missions.
In a bitter irony, part of this operation is being coordinated
out of America's Naval base in Diego Garcia, which was not struck by the
tidal wave. Meanwhile, "USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, which
was in Hong Kong when the earthquake and tsunamis struck, has been
diverted to the Gulf of Thailand to support recovery operations" (Press
Conference of Pacific Command,
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2004/n12292004_2004122905.html ).
Two Aircraft Carriers have been sent to the region.
Why is it necessary for the US to mobilize so much military
equipment? The pattern is unprecedented:
Conway said the Lincoln carrier strike group has 12
helicopters embarked that he said could be "extremely valuable" in
recovery missions.
An additional 25 helicopters are aboard USS Bonhomme
Richard, headed to the Bay of Bengal. Conway said the expeditionary
strike group was in Guam and is forgoing port visits in Guam and
Singapore and expects to arrive in the Bay of Bengal by Jan. 7.
Conway said the strike group, with its seven ships,
2,100 Marines and 1,400 sailors aboard, also has four Cobra helicopters
that will be instrumented in reconnaissance efforts.
Because fresh water is one of the greatest needs in the
region, Fargo has ordered seven ships - each capable of producing 90,000
gallons of fresh water a day - to the region. Conway said five of these
ships are pre-positioned in Guam and two will come from Diego Garcia.
A field hospital ship pre-positioned in Guam would also
be ordered to the region, depending on findings of the disaster relief
assessment teams and need, Conway said. (Ibid)
Why has a senior commander involved in the invasion of Iraq been
assigned to lead the US emergency relief program?
________________________________
The Tsunami Timeline
Sunday 26 December 2004 (GMT)
00.57 GMT: Between 00.57 GMT and 00.59 GMT, an 8.9 magnitude
earthquake occurs on the seafloor near Aceh in northern Indonesia. (See
http://ioc.unesco.org/itsu/ and other reports)
00.58 GMT: Saturday 25 December, 2.58 pm Hawaii Time (GMT-10)
26 Dec 00.58 GMT. US government's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
registers the earthquake on its seismic instruments. In other words at
the time of its occurrence at 00.58 GMT.
shortly after 01.00 GMT: Earthquake hits several cities in
Indonesia, creates panic in urban areas in peninsular Malaysia. The news
of the earthquake is reported immediately.
01.3O GMT: Phuket and Coast of Thailand: The tidal wave hits to
coastline shortly after 8.30 am, 01.30 GMT
02.30 GMT: Colombo Sri Lanka and Eastern Coast of Sri Lanka, the
tidal wave hits the coastal regions close to the capital Colombo,
according to report at 8.30 am local time, 02.30 GMT (an hour and a
half after the earthquake)
02.45 GMT: India's Eastern Coastline. The tsunami hits India's
eastern coast from 6:15 a.m.(2:45 GMT)
04.00 GMT: Male, Maldives: From about 9:00 am (0400 GMT), three
hours after the earthquake, the capital, Male, and other parts of the
country were flooded by the tsunami. (more than three hours after the
earthquake)
11.00 GMT (approximate time according to news dispatches): East
Coast of Africa is hit. More than ten hours after the earthquake
________________________________
For a review of the official statement by NOAA at the Hawaii Center,
click
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2358.htm
<http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2358.htm>
26 Dec 2004
Seismic Activity on Dec 26
(click
http://www.pgc.nrcan.gc.ca/seisplots/long-period/200412/20041226.PGC.LHZ
.24hr.gif
Note: extreme seismic activity prior to 01.00 GMT
The Richter Scale
US scientists in Hawaii had initially indicated that the earthquake was
of a magnitude of 8.0 (ten times weaker than in the case a 9.0
earthquake on the Richter scale).
How can an error of this nature be made, with very sophisticated
measuring equipment?
According to Natural Resources Canada:
"The magnitude of an earthquake is a measure of the amount of
energy released. Each earthquake has a unique magnitude assigned to it.
This is based on the amplitude of seismic waves measured at a number of
seismograph sites, after being corrected for distance from the
earthquake. Magnitude estimates often change by up to 0.2 units, as
additional data are included in the estimate.
The Richter scale is logarithmic, that is an increase of 1
magnitude unit represents a factor of ten times in amplitude. The
seismic waves of a magnitude 6 earthquake are 10 times greater in
amplitude than those of a magnitude 5 earthquake. However, in terms of
energy release, a magnitude 6 earthquake is about 31 times greater than
a magnitude 5. The intensity of an earthquake varies greatly according
to distance from the earthquake, ground conditions, and other factors.
The Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale is used to describe earthquake
effects." ( http://www.pgc.nrcan.gc.ca/seismo/eqinfo/richter.htm )
The following criteria are given by Natural Resources, Canada:
M=8: "Great" earthquake, great destruction, loss of life
over several 100 km (1906 San Francisco, 1949 Queen Charlotte Islands)
<http://www.pgc.nrcan.gc.ca/seismo/hist/1949.htm> .
M=9: Rare great earthquake, major damage over a large
region over 1000 km (Chile 1960, Alaska 1964, and west coast of British
Columbia, Washington, Oregon, 1700)
<http://www.pgc.nrcan.gc.ca/seismo/hist/1700.htm> .
Source Natural Resources Canada:
http://www.pgc.nrcan.gc.ca/seismo/eqinfo/richter.htm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Imagery of tsunami in Sri Lanka
http://globalsecurity.org/eye/andaman-sri-lanka.htm
Animation of Bay of Bengal tsunami, Dec. 26, 2004
http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041229/multimedia/041229-2-m1.html
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/olderwmsg
Bulletins at 1:14 am GMT and 2:04 GMT Dec. 26 2004
TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 0114Z 26 DEC 2004
THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT
ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.
.................. TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ..................
THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING
OR WATCH IN EFFECT.
AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS
ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004
COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST
LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA
MAGNITUDE - 8.0
EVALUATION
THIS EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC. NO DESTRUCTIVE
TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS BASED ON HISTORICAL EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI
DATA.
THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.
THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE BULLETINS
FOR ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.
**************************************************************
TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 002
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 0204Z 26 DEC 2004
THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT
ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.
.................. TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ..................
ATTENTION: NOTE REVISED MAGNITUDE.
THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING
OR WATCH IN EFFECT.
AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS
ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004
COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST
LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA
MAGNITUDE - 8.5
EVALUATION
REVISED MAGNITUDE BASED ON ANALYSIS OF MANTLE WAVES.
THIS EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC. NO DESTRUCTIVE
TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS FOR THE PACIFIC BASIN BASED ON HISTORICAL
EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA.
THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF A TSUNAMI NEAR THE EPICENTER.
THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.
THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE BULLETINS
FOR ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.
**************************************************************
TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 003
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 1535Z 27 DEC 2004
THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT
ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.
.................. TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ..................
THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING
OR WATCH IN EFFECT.
AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS
ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004
COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST
LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA
MAGNITUDE - 9.0
EVALUATION
SOME ENERGY FROM YESTERDAYS TSUNAMI IN THE INDIAN OCEAN HAS
LEAKED INTO THE PACIFIC BASIN... PROBABLY FROM SOUTH OF THE
AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT. THIS ENERGY HAS PRODUCED MINOR
SEA LEVEL FLUCTUATIONS AT MANY PLACES IN THE PACIFIC. FOR
EXAMPLE...
50 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT CALLAO CHILE
19 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT IQUIQUE CHILE
13 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT PAGO PAGO AMERICAN SAMOA
11 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT SUVA FIJI
50 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT WAITANGI CHATHAM IS NEW ZEALAND
65 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT JACKSON BAY NEW ZEALAND
18 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT PORT VILA VANUATU
06 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT HILO HAWAII USA
22 CM CREST-TO-TROUGH AT SAN DIEGO CALIFORNIA USA
HOWEVER... AT MANZANILLO MEXICO SEA LEVEL FLUCTUATIONS WERE
AS MUCH AS 2.6 METERS CREST-TO-TROUGH PROBABLY DUE TO FOCUSING
OF ENERGY BY THE EAST PACIFIC RISE AS WELL AS LOCAL RESONANCES.
THIS IS TO ADVISE THAT SMALL SEA LEVEL CHANGES COULD CONTINUE
TO BE OBSERVED ACROSS THE PACIFIC OVER THE NEXT DAY OR TWO
UNTIL ALL ENERGY FROM THIS EVENT IS EVENTUALLY DISSIPATED.
THIS WILL BE THE FINAL BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.
THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE BULLETINS
FOR ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.