Cowabuga! Dude, maybe SOME parts of California ain't ready, but this guy says 'SURF'S UP!'
Posted on 12/12/2005 1:52:38 AM PST by Rebelbase
LOS ANGELES - Tsunami waves generated by a large offshore earthquake would threaten at least 1 million coastal residents in California and inundate the nation's largest port complex, according to a new report. The bleak study being released Monday found gaps in the state's readiness to handle a tsunami, including flaws in the existing warning system, lack of evacuation plans by coastal communities, and building codes that don't take into account tsunami-strength surges.
In addition, many residents are unaware of the potential danger of tsunami waves and wouldn't know how to respond, the report said.
"I don't think we're ready yet, but we're getting there," said Richard McCarthy, executive director of the California Seismic Safety Commission, which issued the report. The commission, an independent advisory panel, formed a special committee to look at the dangers after last December's deadly tsunami in Southeast Asia.
In the past century, more than 80 tsunamis _ mostly minor _ have been recorded or observed along the California coastline.
The most deadly was in 1964 when a magnitude-9.2 earthquake in Alaska generated massive waves that killed 12 people. Scientists have also kept a close eye on a 680-mile fault 50 miles off the West Coast that behaves much like those that produced the 1964 Alaska quake and the Southeast Asia tsunami that killed more than 176,000 last year.
While catastrophic tsunamis rarely strike the West Coast, state officials are acutely aware of the potential for damage and loss of life as a result of booming development along the coastline.
About a million people live in low-lying coastal areas that are vulnerable to flooding by a tsunami. Existing building codes call for structures to be able to withstand severe shaking from an earthquake, but the report revealed that homes and businesses are rarely designed to hold up against tsunami-force surges.
The report also found most coastal communities lacked evacuation plans for residents because of funding problems.
The state Office of Emergency Services and the University of California have produced inundation maps that show the coastal areas most at risk, but few communities have used them to map out and mark evacuation routes, the report found.
Along with threatening lives and property, a giant tsunami would strike an economic blow to the state, given the vulnerability of its ports, the report said.
If a tsunami shut down the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for two months, the economic loss could reach $60 billion. The ports make up the third busiest port in the world, but its docks and terminals are only about nine feet above the water.
A massive wave higher than that could cause extensive damage, the report said. Thousands of pleasure boats and other crafts could come loose, and vehicles, equipment, containers and tools could get washed away.
In June, a tiny tsunami off the far Northern California coast exposed just how unprepared the region was to the threat.
Cities were confused by the differing tsunami warning messages that came from two centers operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Since then, federal, state and local officials have met several times to agree on the best way to alert communities _ an action that won praise from the authors of the report.
A joint program by the NOAA and Federal Emergency Management Agency is also working on design guidelines for tsunami shelters that could extend to strengthening hospitals and other facilities as well.
PRESIDENT BUSH AND THE USA UNPREPARED FOR MARTIAN INVASION!
Bush is the most isolated earthling ever!(breathlessly)
The loss of California would be a bad thing?
From what I've seen of the state and been told from those who live there, it's San Franciso and Coastal Southern California that are the areas that taint the rest of the state with the label "land of fruits and nuts".
Maybe a smallish tsunami would do the job...
Wait a minute. We haven’t been wiped out by the bird flu yet, and now the nuts are talking tsunami? Hey, one hysteria at a time.
We'd have no opportunity to prepare for something so near since a tsunami can travel at the speed of sound. A warning system would be useless. Folks further up the coast, let's say Oregon, would have more warning and folks can move inland or to higher ground.
There was a Discovery Channel (or similar) special on this fault line and the risks to the West Coast. It ran in the past month or two.
Also, if we are all going die from the bird flu, who cares about the tsunami? There won’t be any human life left to destroy.
Yeah - sure
I'm betting the majority of Nevada's new residency once resided in Kalifornia. (aka; "not all Kalifornians are a asleep at the wheel - just the ones waiting for Mexico's reaquisition of their property")
While they're at it, they should consider a shield or force field to protect them in case the moon decides to fall into the Earth.
Drive like hell.
Too simple. It would never work. It's gov't. We need a 10 point plan, a blue-ribbon committee, an evacuation czar and a bunker for the mayor to hide in with no satellite phone.
In all seriousness, the megacities on the West Coast are suffocating in traffic problems today, in an evacuation you're better off running like hell than trying to drive anywhere. Local government is not prepared to organize a evacuation in these cities.
We are well prepared here in Indiana.
Many there live in a +/- 10 hour existence.
I was lounging in the hot tub at my beachfront home, bathed in golden light and surrounded by flowers, listening to the Pacific crashing beautifully on the shore, a Puccini aria softly playing, sipping incredible Napa Valley chardonnay and munching to-die-for freshly grown raspberries, peaches, apracots, almonds, olives, strawberries, chantarelles, morelles, apples, cherries...
...thinking about mudslides, forest fires, earthquakes, race riots, lawsuits, drive-by shootings, Leftist politics, drug-dazed "homeless" panhandlers, frantic freeways, crumbling infrastructures, insidious Marxism, stifflingly illiberal Leftist totalitarian bullies, great white sharks, mindless "celebrities", selectively enforced legal statutes, sadistic environmentalists and other assorted "activists"...
...wondering if it was worth it...
...and the TV reporter announced:
he-he. Sounds to me like ALL the limousine LIBERALS on the 'left coast' would be wiped out in one fell swoop.
Cowabuga! Dude, maybe SOME parts of California ain't ready, but this guy says 'SURF'S UP!'
I've never heard of Trilobis 65 before. Do you have a link?
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