West Coast Tsunami Warning!

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SUBJECT - TSUNAMI WARNING BULLETIN - INITIAL BULLETIN NUMBER 1
ISSUED 06/15/2005 AT 0256 UTC
<lj-cut text="--More--(10%)">
 IT IS NOT KNOWN - REPEAT NOT KNOWN - IF A TSUNAMI EXISTS BUT A
 TSUNAMI MAY HAVE BEEN GENERATED. THEREFORE PERSONS IN LOW
 LYING COASTAL AREAS SHOULD BE ALERT TO INSTRUCTIONS FROM THEIR
 LOCAL EMERGENCY OFFICIALS. PERSONS ON THE BEACH SHOULD MOVE TO
 HIGHER GROUND IF IN A WARNED AREA. TSUNAMIS MAY BE A SERIES OF
 WAVES WHICH COULD BE DANGEROUS FOR SEVERAL HOURS AFTER THE 
 INITIAL WAVE ARRIVAL.

COASTAL AREAS FROM THE CALIFORNIA-MEXICO BORDER TO THE
NORTH TIP OF VANCOUVER I.-BC. INCLUSIVE.

...A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE COASTAL AREAS
 FROM THE CALIFORNIA-MEXICO BORDER TO THE NORTH TIP OF
 VANCOUVER I.-BC. INCLUSIVE...

ESTIMATED TIMES OF INITIAL WAVE ARRIVAL
CRESCENT CITY-CA 2029 PDT JUN 14   ASTORIA-OR       2154 PDT JUN 14
CHARLESTON-OR    2044 PDT JUN 14   TOFINO-BC        2157 PDT JUN 14
SAN FRANCISCO-CA 2123 PDT JUN 14   SAN PEDRO-CA     2200 PDT JUN 14
SEASIDE-OR       2126 PDT JUN 14   LA JOLLA-CA      2214 PDT JUN 14
NEAH BAY-WA      2148 PDT JUN 14 

I'm not entirely sure what to do with this information, besides considering putting my shoes on!

Wave height map!

Nothing to see here, move along...

Tags: , ,

34 Responses:

  1. jotunheim says:

    Time to catch some waves.

  2. ammonoid says:

    Hm, I think I'll go down to the beach!

    Actually I have no idea what I'd do if a tsunami hit. Alameda is pretty flat, and no on is that far from the water.

  3. hepkitten says:

    tsunami party @ ocean beach @ 9:23pm tonite!

  4. bonniegrrl says:

    meh.
    i'm gonna go see Batman at midnight.

  5. cyeh says:

    I was wondering if that was going to show anything or not. NOAA get a ton of tidal data through a string of buoys off the coast.

    Guess that answers my question.

    • gwillen says:

      Well my understanding of the warning is that it's not based on tidal data, merely on the occurence of an earthquake off the coast. Anyway it's academic now, because I just heard on the radio that the warning was lifted for most of the coast.

      • cyeh says:

        Yes, the warning is based on seismic data. I know this.

        I was curious on whether there would be a corresponding effect on the swell data collected by the buoy net. There was a 'lift', which satisfied my curiousity.

        • gwillen says:

          Apologies, I misunderstood.

        • drbrain says:

          Maybe, maybe not.

          At sea, a tsunami usually has a small amplitude and a long period. It grows as it gets closer to land because the energy reflects off the sea-bottom shortening the period and increasing the amplitude.

          Or something like that.

  6. gwillen says:

    ...you know I was just trying to decide if I should post this to my LJ. I get hit at 10PM, if there's a tsunami at all. Maybe I should start running.

  7. endquote says:
    ...THE TSUNAMI WARNING AND WATCH STATUS IS CANCELED FOR
    CALIFORNIA - OREGON - WASHINGTON - BRITISH COLUMBIA - AND
    ALASKA...
    • msjen says:

      Hey, you were the first to tell me (although I swear I felt it, but I often get weird vertigo and think I'm in a earthquake when there isn't one, so I didn't mention it to anyone).

      It's nice to know that if there's a major disaster and we're all going to die, we'll go out posting it to LJ. Can you say sitting ducks???

      • jwz says:

        I put my shoes on, though!

        • violentbloom says:

          not a very effective warning... they didn't blast the sirens or anything (though thanks to the weekly tuesday noon test I know there are sirens in SF and they do work)
          how would I even know? though I do live on a nice hill so it's not really an issue.

          • mattbot says:

            Via LJ emergency alert network, of course!

          • usufructer says:

            What happens if a tsunami is going to hit at noon on a tuesday?

            • violentbloom says:

              then we'll ignore it just like we would any time any other alarm goes off...
              I was at the mall a couple weeks ago and the fire alarm went off..no one did anything...mindlessly kept shopping. Bizarre given the volume of the alarm and the blinding strobe lights...

              • I at least lean out over the balcony to see if I can see smoke when our fire alarm goes off. Screw walking down 21 floors because some idiot can't use his oven properly, though.

              • legolas says:

                Recently in SF the fire alarm in my hotel went of at 6 or so in the morning. It stayed on for about 2 seconds, just long enough for me to wake up and wonder what the noise was, then go back to sleep. 10 minutes later someone announced of a speaker system that no action was required... WHAT? So either the alarm really goes of for 2 sec (not enough to properly wake me), or they turned it of almost at once, but weren't sure if that was the right thing to do until 10 min later?

                I guess it's always the same with alarms: scary but false alarm the first (and second?) time, just annoying every time after that.

        • msjen says:

          You were one step ahead of me. All I did was recite all of my earthquake drill/emergency procedure training to my roommate, who looked decidedly freaked out. I suppose I was listening at all those boring faculty meetings.

          Why am I still typing this? We should be out celebrating the fact that we're still alive. Or that it's Tuesday. Whatever.

        • xenogram says:

          First "pants alert" then "shoes alert", Jamie.

  8. romulusnr says:

    bah, they just wanted something to flush the michael jackson news out of the queue.

  9. bifrosty2k says:

    I heard about it about 10 minutes before it was supposed to happen, and in the same call they told me the warning was canceled.

    I was hanging out at my friends house near the ocean, so we drove down a couple blocks to see, there were a lot of people staring at nothing, and a lot of cops.

    feh.

  10. substitute says:

    The two "SMS alerts" I'm really glad to have in California are the "Earthquakes > 4" and the "Tsunami Warning" ones. Although down here in Orange County we're pretty sealed off from most surges due to Catalina Island being 26 miles off the coast.

  11. transgress says:

    hah! i just got this as a reply to a comment of mine on slashdot:
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=152771&threshold=1&commentsort=3&tid=100&mode=thread&cid=12820860

    ..on the upside, at least its news when you switch your os.

    • ewindisch says:

      > ..on the upside, at least its news when you switch your os.

      With a horde of comments following asking, "Who is JWZ?" Ah, children these days.

  12. They had to have a guy go out and kick on each of the Tsunami sirens manually in La Push, WA.

    And in Cannon Beach the Tsunami sirens went off as planned and hundreds of people...

    flocked to the beach to see what was going on.

    Sigh. I really have my doubts about humanity sometimes.

    Jeffrey