Tsunami Alert - Jellies who live on the west coast near a beach - How well are you informed?

Hawaii Jake is posting on Facebook, so he’s OK, but the sirens are keeping him awake…

I’m glad to hear this!

Post 1 & 2 in your other thread @mattbrowne. I think it’s pretty accurate, but I’m not banking on it. Very seldom have I ever fully trusted man’s ability to predict weather. The waves are expected to hit the west coast around 7:30am PST, so I’ve read.

Be safe HawaiiJake and all you California jellies. I’ll be thinking of you all day.

I found this for Oregon: “Damaging tsunami waves of more than 6 feet could hit spots along the Oregon coast as the ocean surges after a massive earthquake in Japan. The first waves are expected to hit about 7 a.m. today, but the biggest waves may not reach the shore until two to three hours later. The entire Oregon coast is under a tsunami warning. That means people should move inland to higher ground, emergency officials said. The waves could cause coastal flooding and powerful currents. Sirens sounded in the wee hours in some coastal communities as others canceled school or warned residents by phone alerts.”

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/03/oregon_coast_braces_for_tsunami_surges_surpassing_6_feet.html

I know that tsunami sirens were sounding up and down the OR coast from about 4 am this morning. The roads are congested with people headed to higher ground. The waves started coming at about 7:30 this morning and so far, everything seems fine.

I’m not there, but I’ve been listening to my local NPR station, which reaches the central Oregon coast, all morning.

Water was flowing away from Santa Cruz at about 5 mph earlier today. Water level was down about 10 ft. I wonder when it will start heading back. Many people have gathered to watch.

A sad state of affairs for those affected. I’m in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains about 130 miles inland from the coast.
No worries here, we just live in forest fire land.

I watched the coverage from the very start of breaking news, through hour after hour of coverage. It was so heartbreaking.

Now we know the damage on the West Coast was minimal, except for some destruction at various marinas, as boats rocked into one another.

…How well are you informed?...

Very well. The system works.
A crap load of damage in the harbor and one death. The death was an idiot that had to go down to the waters edge to see for himself.
The [idiot] gene pool was reduced.

This is a little off-topic but I am presently on the island of Huahine in French Polynesia, in a house right by the water. This morning at 4 a.m. some sirens went off and bunches of people headed for the hills. Others didn’t. We were up the mountain by 4:40 or so and made a lot of new friends waiting to see what would happen. Everyone came back down again around 10 a.m. Nothing happened on this particular island. This shows me that the system works to warn us but not to produce drama. Which is perfect.

@boffin
In the midst of world drama it is wise to remember that we do, indeed, live in a Farside cartoon!

Crescent City was hit pretty hard, and that’s about 1 hour north from where I am, but it looks like we were spared.

School was canceled, Highway 101 was closed, and I could watch some fairly large waves roll in from the roof of my house, but there really wasn’t anything of note nor did I ever feel in any sort of danger.

Honestly, if I hadn’t received text messages and emails telling me school was closed and classes were canceled I probably would have just gone to school and been very, very confused.

One man who wanted to take pictures died. Did he think that a 6-foot “wave” is nothing unusual? I’m under the impression that some people still don’t understand that the height of a tsunami cannot be compared to the same height of a wave created by wind.

@dverhey What were you doing on the roof of your house?

@chyna eating oreo’s drinking milk and watching waves. What else?

^^You crazy guy. You rock.