Tsunami Scare Brings Back Memories
Crescent City (Calif.) residents may have felt déjà vu Tuesday when a powerful earthquake off northern California triggered a tsunami warning for the West Coast.
In 1964, Crescent City became the only community in the United States to suffer through a fatal tsunami. Eleven people died when a tidal wave pummeled the coastal town.
So, when the 7.0 temblor hit Tuesday, prompting the tsunami warning, it brought back memories, says Del Norte County (Calif.) Sheriff Dean Wilson.
"The events of those days are well versed with us," he
The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler Wednesday. "We had a lot of (attention) after the earthquake and tsunami in Malaysia. Again, those areas of impact that occurred back in '64 are still hard in the memories here in Crescent City and Del Norte County."But, says Wilson, "Crescent City, having been impacted by the last earthquake, we're probably more prepared than any other community in the United States to handle one of these tsunamis."
He says some 4,000 people were evacuated, "residents and visitors to our community, through the tsunami warning system that we have in place here. Most of what we had here was pretty orderly. We had a few minor accidents. No injuries, but we were able to evacuate the low-lying areas around the Crescent City area, that area that was affected back in '64, and we were able to get everybody out of those areas fairly efficiently."
With a quake only 90 miles offshore, why didn't a tsunami form?
The answer lies in the type of quake it was,
, senior science adviser of the ."The sea floor was moving side-to-side instead of, as was the case with Sumatra, where it was a thrusting motion, where one plate is moving up against another," Applegate says. "That displaces the water column. So, because it turned out these were moving side-to-side, it didn't displace the water column and generate a tsunami."
Applegate continued, "There certainly is a tsunami risk to California. It has been struck before by tsunamis generated elsewhere around the Pacific Ocean.
"About 85 percent of the tsunamis generated in the world take place in the Pacific. So this specific event was just a reminder that this is a very active part of the planet and that there is certainly a risk for coastal communities, (from those) generated just offshore, (and) from tsunamis generated from earthquakes at a distance."