Inspired by last year's tsunami in Japan, several thousand people on the southern Oregon Coast took part in their first tsunami evacuation drill, stopping what they were doing and walking uphill to assembly points, where volunteers handed out bottles of water and grab-bags of essentials.

Unlike a real tsunami, there were no sirens and no tremors from a massive offshore earthquake on Thursday in the towns of Coos Bay, North Bend and Charleston.

But after weeks of door-to-door canvassing, advertising, and community meetings, people knew it was coming.

Most who took part were schoolchildren, like those at Blossom Gulch Elementary School in Coos Bay, were 400 kids crawled under tables and pretended the ground was shaking.

Then they lined up with their teachers and walked up the hill to the high school football field, where principal Jodi O'Mara congratulated them on "an awesome job."