My niece, who is spending the winter with her husband near the village of False Pass, Alaska has posted a blog about their tsunami alert in the middle of the night last night. It's titled "Pan-pan, pan-pan, pan-pan."
In proper usage, repeated three times, “Pan-Pan” is the radiotelephone term used to announce an urgent situation that may become dangerous. It has preceded all recent Coast Guard broadcasts regarding the tsunami warnings and advisories in this area. It is a step below “Mayday” which indicates immediate and grave danger.
Last night around 11pm we began to hear chatter on the VHF marine radio between boat captains about a tsunami warning. We immediately went online to get information and began reading reports of the massive earthquake in Japan.
Please go here to read the whole thing.