(a) The purpose of this article of the plan is to advise the maritime community of steps that should be taken before, during, and after the passage of a heavy weather or unsafe wave condition.

(b) A crucial aspect of the Saint Paul harbor operational management plan is the availability of valid climatological data. Luckily, the State of Alaska, because of the fortunate circumstances of strategic location in the Bering Sea “weather kitchen,” has access to a state of the art meteorological information system operated by the National Weather Service.

(c) Under the auspices of the “Class A” Weather Service Forecast Office operated on Saint Paul by the National Weather Service (NWS), the port of Saint Paul has access to climatological data support sufficiently expert to allow Saint Paul to provide safe harbor operation.

(d) Through its Class A office on Saint Paul, the NWS’s Ocean Services Unit (OSU) and the Marine Observation Specialist in Anchorage regularly provide weather and wave data on a 12-hour schedule from routine observation reports from ships and devices in the North Pacific and the Bering Sea.

(e) For the purposes of fulfilling its commitment to operate a safe harbor, and to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the harbor queueing operation, the port of Saint Paul through its Port Control and Harbormaster Department will gather and rebroadcast supplementary weather and wave data throughout the Bering Sea as a service to the fleet.

(f) The Port Control Office at Saint Paul will maintain and operate a Bering Sea Weather Central facility wherein the Bering Sea is displayed in approximate 100-square-mile sectors. Vessels operating in any sector will be plotted and contacted by a powerful sideband radio as necessary to ascertain the local conditions in that sector. Exact locations of vessels will be protected. When climatological data from the Anchorage and Saint Paul Weather Service Forecast Offices are received on the direct wire equipment at Port Control Weather Central, and air pressure measurements indicate potential heavy weather and wave conditions, the Assistant Harbormaster on duty will radio all vessels operating in the potential storm pathway between the approaching low pressure or storm system and Saint Paul. Local conditions will be gathered from the ships and monitored. The same data will be passed to the NWS OSU for professional meteorological interpretation. This information will be used to predict the advance, speed and severity of storm systems approaching Saint Paul and vessels in the harbor will be advised of the potentiality for possible unsafe wave conditions. Depending upon the forecast intensity and ETA of the approaching system, vessels in the area and in the Saint Paul queueing pattern will be instructed not to enter the harbor until conditions have been declared normal. As monitoring of an advancing storm continues, vessels in the harbor will be required to declare their intentions to request permission to remain in the harbor, or heave to and make for sea. [Ord. 89-02 § 2 (Att.), 1988. Code 1979 Ch. 18.14.]