I've never seen such a large conglomeration of related earthquakes before.
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by 23 » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:10 pm
by eyeno » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:19 pm
by elfismiles » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:21 pm
by 82_28 » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:22 pm
Eight-foot waves from the Japan tsunami destroyed much of Crescent City harbor, battered boats, closed the 101 Freeway and left one person missing.
KDRV-TV reported that four people were washed out to sea Friday. Three were hurt and one is feared dead.
Local residents reported that about three dozen boats were "crushed" in the harbor and that surging waters significantly damaged or destroyed most of the docks. Ocean water surging up Elk Creek north of the harbor reportedly lapped up to front doors of the community's cultural center.
Officials were warning residents to expect higher surges throughout the day, one resident said by telephone. Officials from the Sheriff's Department and the city could not be reached. Crescent City, near the Oregon border, was the scene of a devastating tsunami in 1964 which killed 11 people and destroyed 289 homes and businesses.
In 2006, tsunami-driven currents caused $10 million in damage to the city's harbor. One resident said Friday's damage to the harbor was as bad -– or worse -– as then.
Officials reported waves of 6-1/2 feet in Crescent City and 6 feet in Morro Bay, said Caltech scientist Lucy Jones.
Jones said officials won't know the extent of the damage until high tide occurs later Friday.
"Clearly, very large drawdown of water in Half Moon Bay," Jones said earlier in the day. "We are coming to high tide in a couple [of] hours. As long as we're still growing on tide, we need to keep a watch on the water.... Currents may be very significant.
In Santa Cruz, the waves jostled boats and damaged docks.
Authorities issued an evacuation advisory about 6:40 a.m. for coastal residents and those living along the San Lorenzo and Capitol rivers and other major waterways in Santa Cruz County, said county spokesman Enrique Sahagun.
The first waves reached land about 7:45 a.m. At Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor, the swells pushed and bumped boats together and broke some docks, but total damage is unknown thus far, Sahagun said.
"The water is pushing the boats together like a major car collision on Highway 405 or another big highway," he said.
The tsunami capital of the continental United States is Crescent City, Calif. (population 7,542), an economically depressed logging and fishing town just south of the Oregon border. Crescent City is predicted to be the California location hit hardest by the Japanese tsunami; one forecast predicts 7-foot waves, though so far the observed effect has been minimal. [Update, 2:28 p.m. ET: The Los Angeles Times reports 6.5-foot waves in Crescent City causing "significant damage" to boats in the harbor and "most of the docks" and flooding an inland creek. No reports yet of injuries or deaths. Larger surges may follow.]
They've seen it before. Since 1933, 31 tsunamis have been observed in Crescent City. Four of those caused damage, and one of them, in March 1964, remains the "largest and most destructive recorded tsunami to ever strike the United States Pacific Coast," according to the University of Southern California's Tsunami Research Center. The 1964 tsunami killed 17 people on the West Coast, 11 of them in Crescent City.
Good Friday Earthquake, 1964. Click image to expand.Fourth Avenue in Anchorage, Alaska, looking east from near D Street, after the 1964 earthquakeThe 1964 tsunami was caused by the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America, and the second-largest ever recorded anywhere. The so-called Good Friday Earthquake, whose epicenter was just north of Alaska's Prince William Sound, registered 9.2 on the Richter scale and killed 115 Alaskans, inflicting its worst damage on Anchorage. Had it not struck during late afternoon on the Good Friday holiday, the death toll would probably have been much higher. All but nine of the deaths were caused not by the earthquake itself, but by the tsunami that resulted. (The tsunami also hit Canada, but no one there was killed.)
After Alaska, California, where the tsunami hit a little before midnight, was the state worst-hit by the 1964 wave. Total property damage there was $17 million (Oregon and Washington each sustained less than $1 million), of which fully $15 million occurred in Crescent City. According to Dennis M. Powers' 2005 account of the 1964 tsunami, The Raging Sea, in Crescent City "the disaster exceeded the combined effects of all previous death and destruction totals caused by tsunamis on the United States mainland and the greatest fatalities, injuries, and destruction ever reported on the West Coast." Although the earthquake killed many more people in Alaska than in Crescent City, the property damage per block ended up, weirdly, being greater in Crescent City.
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Why is Crescent City so vulnerable to tsunamis? Apparently the main culprit is the Mendocino Fracture Zone, an underwater elevation extending westward that guides tsunamis into deeper water, where they pick up speed as they approach the mainland. The West Coast's topography around Crescent City curves inland, which intensifies a tsunami's effect, and the shoreline of Crescent City itself is (as the name suggests) a curve within that curve. The town's name is also, of course, the nickname of New Orleans, itself devastated by flood during 2005's Hurricane Katrina. One lesson would appear to be that if you want to stay dry, don't call the place where you live "Crescent City."
by Nordic » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:24 pm
23 wrote:That humongous red spot on your map, justdrew... over by Japan...is mind-boggling to me.
I've never seen such a large conglomeration of related earthquakes before.
by 82_28 » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:26 pm
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
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Glorious Link [1].
Charles Manson's Mailing address:
Charles Manson, B-33920
B2 119L
P. O. Box 7500
5905 Lake Earl Drive
Crescent City, CA 95532
by 82_28 » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:27 pm
Nordic wrote:23 wrote:That humongous red spot on your map, justdrew... over by Japan...is mind-boggling to me.
I've never seen such a large conglomeration of related earthquakes before.
The Christchurch one was insane, too. Someone here posted an animated map, it was an incredible bit of webbery, it was a map where you could demand a time frame, and then it would show you the quakes over the course of the time frame. Christchurch was just POUNDED all day long that day. Just bizarre. I've been in my fair share of quakes, some with aftershocks, but never had I seen one quite so .... jackhammer-like. This one seems similar in that regard.
Scary stuff.
by elfismiles » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:35 pm
82_28 wrote:
It looks like the crust of Earth is just cratering there!
US says Japan earthquake left billions in damage
(AP) – 58 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A massive earthquake that struck off the coast of Japan Friday was the strongest quake in the area in nearly 1,200 years.
David Applegate, a senior science adviser for earthquake and geologic hazards for the U.S. Geological Survey, said the 8.9-magnitude quake ruptured a patch of the earth's crust 150 miles long and 50 miles across.
He said the earthquake, which also spawned a massive tsunami that hit Japan before racing across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States, likely caused tens of billions of dollars in structural damage in Japan.
Laura K. Furgione, deputy director for the National Weather Service, said the tsunami first hit Hawaii early Friday morning. An 8.1-foot wave destroyed piers and docks in Crescent City, Calif., later Friday.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... 11f67c16b4
by justdrew » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:36 pm
by Luther Blissett » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:41 pm
by seemslikeadream » Fri Mar 11, 2011 4:48 pm
Reuters)- Pressure inside a reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co's quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant may have risen to 2.1 times its designed capacity, Japan's trade ministry said on Saturday, exceeding the 1.5-times level announced a few hours earlier.
by 82_28 » Fri Mar 11, 2011 5:06 pm
Luther Blissett wrote:Well, my friend in NZ's girlfriend just broke up with him, so he's packing up and getting ready to fly out amidst all the tsunami sirens in Auckland. I can't even imagine how end-of-worldly nightmarish shit must be for him right now.
by tazmic » Fri Mar 11, 2011 5:16 pm
by seemslikeadream » Fri Mar 11, 2011 5:25 pm
by Jeff » Fri Mar 11, 2011 5:49 pm
Radiation levels in Fukushima Daiichi plant central control unit is 1,000 times normal, Kyodo says
by Reuters_Helen Cook at 3/11/2011 9:44:44 PM4:44 PM
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