Chatan town residents walk toward Marek Park during a tsunami evacuation drill at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Sept. 19, 2026. (Brian McElhiney/Stars and Stripe)
KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa — Nearly 90 residents of neighboring Chatan town rehearsed an evacuation to higher ground on this U.S. base Saturday, three months after a tsunami alert prompted Kadena to open the same escape route for real.
Eighty-seven adults and children walked about a mile in temperatures above 90 degrees from Gate 1 to Marek Park, about 200 feet above sea level.
Much of Chatan lies only about 6 to 15 feet above sea level, according to the town’s website.
During an actual tsunami warning, evacuees may continue through the base to Gate 5, making the route about 2½ miles long and reaching roughly 240 feet above sea level.
“For three consecutive years, Kadena has opened its gates in response to tsunami warnings or advisories,” Col. Bryon Buzan, 18th Mission Support Group commander, told participants after the drill. “Exercises like this one … allow for team Kadena and our counterparts to be ready each time.”
The most recent real-world event came June 8, when the 18th Wing opened Gate 1 after a tsunami warning followed a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the southern Philippines.
Three vehicles carrying an unspecified number of people used the evacuation route through Gate 5 that day, the wing said in an unsigned email Saturday.
A roughly 3-foot tsunami was forecast, although the wave observed was only about an inch, The Japan Times reported at the time.
Kadena has opened its gates during other recent tsunami alerts. A magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on July 30, 2025, triggered alerts across coastal Japan, including Okinawa, and an April 3, 2024, earthquake near Taiwan prompted about 250 Chatan residents to evacuate through the base.
Saturday’s drill was the third annual rehearsal since Kadena and Chatan renewed their tsunami evacuation agreement in August 2024. It runs through August 2028.
Airmen from logistics, engineering, security and medical units helped guide participants alongside children from the Civil Air Patrol’s Okinawa Cadet Squadron.
For Ayumi Kishimoto, of Chatan’s Sunabe district, the drill offered a chance to test an escape route she might someday need.
Participating for the second time, she said she wanted to learn how long it would take to reach the base from her home.
“My home is close to the shore — I can see the ocean right in front of me,” she said in Japanese after the drill. “I want to know how I can evacuate in times of emergency.”
Buzan said the rehearsals help the base improve its procedures.
“We continue to refine how we open and operate our gates, how we direct traffic, how we move people safely to higher ground,” he told reporters.
