Politics Tsunami could hit West Coast

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rileylovesalias

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Guys, I found this on my AOL.com pop-up when I open AIM. I thought this was important and serious.

Scientists: Tsunami Could Hit West Coast



AP Photo NY115

By JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA

Associated Press Writer

Tsunami scientists and public safety officials are closely watching an earthquake-prone nation with thousands of miles of crowded coastlines for signs of an imminent disaster. Indonesia? Japan? Try the United States.


Experts say the West Coast could experience a calamity similar to the one they have been watching unfold half a world away.


``People need to know it could happen,'' said geologist Brian Atwater of the U.S. Geological Survey.


Scientists say grinding geologic circumstances similar to those in Sumatra also exist just off the Pacific Northwest coast. They are a loaded gun that could trigger a tsunami that could hit Northern California, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia in minutes - too fast for the nation's deep-sea tsunami warning system to help.


In fact, Atwater said there was a 9.0 earthquake under the Pacific more than 300 years ago that had devastating consequences. He and other scientists last year reported finding evidence of severe flooding in the Puget Sound area in 1700, including trees that stopped growing after ``taking a bath in rising tide waters.''


The danger rests just 50 miles off the West Coast in a 680-mile undersea fault known as the Cascadia subduction zone that behaves much like one that ruptured off Sumatra. The 1700 quake occurred along the Cascadia fault.


Scientists say a giant rupture along the fault would cause the sea floor to bounce 20 feet or more, setting off powerful ocean waves relatively close to shore. The first waves could hit coastal communities in 30 minutes or less, according to computer models.


Seattle; Vancouver, British Columbia; and other big cities in the region probably would be relatively protected from deadly flooding because of their inland locations. But other, smaller communities could be devastated.


And while buildings in the United States are far more solid than the shacks and huts that were obliterated in some of Asia's poor villages, few structures could withstand nearby tremors as powerful as those that occurred Sunday in Sumatra.


Moreover, such a quake would be way too close to shore for the nation's network of deep-sea wave gauges to be of any help.


Even in the case of quakes happening farther out in the Pacific or in Alaska, the U.S. warning system might not be adequate.


The network - which consists of six deep-sea instruments in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii and near the equator off the coast of Peru - is thin and scattered, and at least two of the gauges in Alaska are not even reporting daily wave readings. Also, predicting where a tsunami is likely to come ashore cannot be done with the kind of precision seen in hurricane forecasts.


Eddie N. Bernard, who directs the network for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the six sensors are the ``bare minimum'' for adequate warning. He said there are plans to expand the system to 20 sensors in the next five years, including 10 gauges for the seismically active Aleutian Islands.


Whether the continental United States is vulnerable to tsunamis from Asian earthquakes is another question. Hawaii and parts of Alaska certainly are exposed, but whether earthquake fault lines in Japan and Southeast Asia are oriented in the right directions to send tsunamis all they way to the Lower 48 states is debatable.


As for the Atlantic Coast, a tsunami is considered extremely unlikely.


Some computer models suggest East Coast cities are vulnerable to a large tsunami if there were a huge volcanic eruption and landslide in the Canary Islands, off northwest Africa. But other researchers say such an event would happen only once in 10,000 years, and such a disruption is unlikely to occur all at once.
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What do you guys think?

--riley--
 
Some scientists even say that a tsunami could hit the EAST coast when one of the Canary Islands' volcanoes rupture and slide 1/2 trillion pounds of dirt into the ocean.
 
We also stand the chance of dying from a meteor rock. Naure can be unpredictable. But on the other hand, we in the US tend to have far better early warning systems in place. So the hpoe is that damage would mostly be material and that the people can make preparations to evacuate in time.
 
why are people so ignorant? they wait for something like the Asian tsunami to happen before they realize that Mother Nature can be destructive enough that we dont need to cause more violence ourselves.
 
UncoveringAlias said:
Some scientists even say that a tsunami could hit the EAST coast when one of the Canary Islands' volcanoes rupture and slide 1/2 trillion pounds of dirt into the ocean.
[post="1135225"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]​
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read about that one too ... but how many years do we still have before it happens??? :thinking:
 
Im on Lake Michigan right now, and there are big waves on the great lakes too. They are called seeches. Thats all I know :lol:


Damage to the west coast would be minimal due to the rugged landscape as opposed to the flat lands in SE asia where this just happened.
 
Aliasfan13 said:
Uh oh...I live in NorCal...
[post="1136221"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]​
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Ditto. But you live in the Bay Area. More prone to destruction. I live rather inland, luckily.

Anyways, oh, lovely Mother Nature. :blink:
 
I was watching some Discovery Channel thing about Super Tsunamis, before the whole Asia incident occured. If one of the volcanoes on the Canary Islands does go it will deliver so much dirt into the Atlantic the East Coast could expect tsunamis as high as 900 ft. Now that's scary. Good thing I live in so cal.
 
for everyone living in Nor Cal (i do too), a bigger threat than a tsunami is a major earthquake.

between the years of 2003-2032, there is a 62.5% chance that an earthquake of at least 6.7 will hit Northern California. If an earthquake at least 7.0 hits the San Andreas Fault, the South Bay and Peninsula will be almost completely destroyed.

my suggestion is to make a plan for food, water, communications, etc. in an event of an earthquake than in an event of a tsunami. cuz you are far more likely to survive an earthquake than a tsunami like the one in Asia.
 
speaking of tsunamis-
did you guys hear that a warning was issued to the thai government
but they squashed it and were worried that it would hurt their tourism?
what up with that???
MC
 
did you know that the tsunami in india, acctually knocked the earth off its axis, and forever more the days will be just slightly shorter like just miliseconds but still
 
bristowbabe47 said:
did you know that the tsunami in india, acctually knocked the earth off its axis, and forever more the days will be just slightly shorter like just miliseconds but still
[post="1139187"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]​
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I'd like to know where you heard that because I hardly can believe that to be true.

If it were that strong it would have affected a much larger area than it did. It would have to be near world wide catastrophic.
 
The Earth likes to punish the poor people of the world. Why are the rich people never punished? The West Coast is full of wealthy individuals....
 
SecretAgentMan said:
The Earth likes to punish the poor people of the world.  Why are the rich people never punished?  The West Coast is full of wealthy individuals....
[post="1139239"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]​
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LOL

But there were some wealthy vacationers there.

Here's a site that lists the most powerful earthquakes since 1900 or so.

http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/10maps_world.html

This one that caused the tsunami was ranked only 5th. So I highly doubt that it knocked to world off the axis.

How big do some people think the earth is? The size of a basketball?
 

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