Warnings save Hawaii, U.S. West Coast

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This article was published 12/03/2011 (5515 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CRESCENT CITY, Calif. — The warnings travelled quickly across the Pacific in the middle of the night: An 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan spawned a deadly tsunami and it was racing east Friday as fast as a jetliner.

Sirens blared in Hawaii. The West Coast pulled back from the shoreline, fearing the worst. People were warned to stay away from the beaches. Fishermen took their boats out to sea and safety.

The alerts moved faster than the waves, giving millions of people across the Pacific Rim hours to prepare.

In the end, harbours and marinas in California and Oregon bore the brunt of the damage, estimated by authorities to be in the millions of dollars. Boats crashed into each other, some vessels were pulled out to sea and docks were ripped out. Rescue crews searched for a man who was swept out to sea while taking pictures.

None of the damage — in the U.S., South America or Canada — was anything like the devastation in Japan.

The main concerns were Northern California and Oregon because water levels measured at tidal gauges were four to five times higher than those in B.C., said seismologist Paul Huang, who works at the Westcoast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center.

The warnings — the second major one for the region in a year — and the response showed how far the earthquake-prone Pacific Rim had come since a deadly tsunami caught much of Asia by surprise in 2004.

“That was a different era,” said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. “We got the warning out very quickly. It would not have been possible to do it that fast in 2004.”

Within 10 minutes after Japan was shaken by its biggest earthquake in recorded history, the centre had issued its warning. The offshore quake pushed water onto land, sometimes kilometres inland, sweeping away boats, cars, homes and people.

As the tsunami raced across the Pacific at more than 800 km/h, the first sirens began sounding across Hawaii late Thursday night.

Police went through the tourist mecca of Waikiki, warning of an approaching tsunami. Hotels moved tourists from lower floors to upper levels. Some tourists ended up spending the night in their cars.

 

— The Associated Press