PORT ORCHARD — The Kitsap County Department of Emergency Management hosted a seminar June 1 describing the potential impact of a 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Washington State.

June 7-8, the seminar participants — 62 leaders from local governments, fire protection, law enforcement, public utilities, military and businesses — will put what they learned to the test in Cascadia Rising, an exercise that will be carried out in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

The Kitsap County Emergency Operations Center, or EOC, will be fully activated on June 7-8. Exercise participants will respond to a simulated earthquake which has impacted millions of residents in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, and a tsunami which has devastated the coastal communities. In this exercise, it is anticipated that the ground would shake for 3-6 minutes, causing major damage to roads and other critical infrastructure throughout Kitsap County.

In any disaster, the Kitsap EOC functions as the hub for gathering and disseminating information, developing a coordinated response plan, and sending requests to the state EOC for essential resources not already within the county. In this exercise, the challenge will be on responding to life and safety concerns within the first 48 hours of the quake, amid the damaged infrastructure. This includes simulating a communication blackout for the first two hours — which could be much longer in real life — and the impact of aftershocks.

Another component of the Cascadia Rising Exercise in Kitsap will take place on June 9. A Community Point of Distribution site will be set up by a team of 25 volunteers at the Kitsap Mall parking lot. They will practice distributing commodities, which in a real disaster could include food, water and tarps to those impacted by a disaster.

— Kitsap DEM encourages every resident to prepare now for a disaster. Information on preparing your home and the collection of emergency supplies for your car, work and home can be found at www.kitsapdem.org.