16 JANUARY, 2022 - TSUNAMI SURVIVORS !!

  

An underwater volcano blew up in the Pacific Islands of Tonga (3,000 miles west of Hawaii, 6,000 miles west of Oregon)... around 0530 PST a Tsunami Alert was given for the entire Alaska to Mexico coast.  Expectations were for a wave height of 3-5 feet, that would hit Florence between 0830-0930.

To make it real, at 0630 the special ringtones went off on both cell phones, the computers dropped down red alerts, and the harbor sent Jason around to awaken and notify liveaboards…the marine radio and the local radio station both chimed in as well, but at 0630 there was nothing further to be learned about this event online, and the harbor has no knowledge of ever having experienced a prior tsunami event or how this harbors infrastructure would react to a 3-5 foot tsunami surge.

Living ashore, in the midwest you know about sub-zero days on end without power, high blizzard winds, tornadoes, and 6 foot overnight snow falls as being just a part of your lifestyle, in the southeast people live with hurricane threat, flooding and high heat dangers, sandstorms, high heat, flash floods happen in the SouthWest, and possibly rain in the NorthWest.

Living on the water full-time, being at sea, and boats in general instill a emergency response, rapid-action mentality, so you are always ready for high wind, violent wave action, taking on water, losing power, being dismasted, capsized or sunk, you do not live in fear or stress about it, but you realize the threat is there, 24/7. 

In the end, it is all the same, Mother Nature is a bitch… we know about her rage, and we must be able to outsmart her by having knowledge, and being prepared for possibly quick reaction.

 (Almost) none of us do the grade school “Fire Alarm” drill and actually go through the motions, but, we (as intelligent adults) “think” we know when and what to do (should we have to) if an emergency arises. We are constantly aggravated and pestered with these survivalist emails, news releases, brochures and advertisements about emergency supplies, ready bags, and the dangers of life… (2012-14 “Revolution” TV series style).

Today, we had a very lengthy 2 hour long warning envelope…aTsunami warning is different than being moored at ground zero when a hurricane hit is imminent, with tsunami you do not have the time to haul out your boat, you can only batten down, and either ride it out, or leave, at most you will have a three hour warning. 

Usually, you watch a hurricane develop and move for many days, and can be leisurely about your plans, mostly, water related events like floods, storms, hurricanes and Tsunami are much less treacherous than tornado, earthquake, volcano, landslides or last minute “way” off target hurricane groundings (which usually are unexpected, unannounced) and “just happen” which is what makes them evil.

This was a good trial-run Tsunami drill for a live-aboard family, and it exposed some awareness of our harbor, our boat, our knowledge and “us”, causing us a review and a rethink…  it took us 45 minutes to strip So…fea of what we wanted to save, and move it to the van in the high/dry parking lot… we now think it can be accomplished in 30 minutes.

Our review of this morning's drill goes to a different place than the simplistic removal of treasures and necessities to high ground, it creates concern.  

Firstly, a Tsunami is like a fast-forwarded or high speed version of a hurricane… Instead of the events' lapsed time being days, it is down to hours of advanced knowledge and warning (alert-time), the tidal surge (or wave-action) is the feared dynamic in both, but, the plus to a tsunami is of course no wind element to really muck things up.

Both events are actually mechanical in nature it is fully viewable from satellites, hence, it can be tracked, graphed and timed, it can be monitored with aircraft, buoys, and visuals (even in darkness), time to landfall should be very determinable, surge height should be measurable, and sequence numbers of repetition should be viewable… this is simple stuff.

Of course, no one can be fully positive about hurricane reliability, but, tsunami subduction/wave height/number of cycles/wave timings are very predictive (and without much deviance).  Our current state of oceanic and weather prediction is such that variable impacts to the data should be highly accurate. 

What we got… was “the sky is falling, run for your life !”,“ we are all going to die !”, “run away !” and a 24 hour threat of imminent danger, no “all clear”, and an absolute ZERO impact event…    This reminds one of the many many times we have cancelled plans, events, trips and reunions based on FAKE weather reporting that never materialized, and, of the many many times we have had plans, events, trips and reunions destroyed by weather events that were “unexpected”.  

When you spend 1,500 dollars buying plywood, hiring a contractor and boarding up your house, or spend ½ day and 500 bucks to move and haul out your boat to a storage yard, or rent a trailer to load up all your precious valuables and move them to safety… FOR THE FOURTH TIME ! and nothing happens.

It is as bad as you doing nothing because the hurricane or Tsunami will hit 350 miles from here… and you lose it all, a total loss… because indeed, you were actually “at” ground zero… oops!

In the military, weather people are responsible for lives… lots of lives, a miscalculation is deadly. Supposed to have full cloud coverage (and there are blue-clear skies), supposed to have rain beginning at 1630… (and it never comes). No moon tonight …(surprise !), the wind will be from the East…  the first Tsunami wave of 5 foot will hit shore at 1850, the hurricane will make landfall at midnight, when failure after failure occurs, people stop believing … and… listening.

We sit in basements waiting for the tornado, we do not sandbag because there will be no more rain to cause the flood, we move our entire first floor to the second floor because the water will be 17 feet high, we hire trucks to move our cattle out, entire cities empty out and flee, and nothing happens (for the third time !).

   When a 3-5 foot Tsunami wave becomes less than an inch, do you continue to believe the 3-5 foot tsunami wave maybe will not be 28-35 foot ?  it's a crapshoot, no satellite can “see” these waves from space, no buoys can measure them, no navy planes drop buoys to record timing and height, no airline pilots report visuals, no commercial vessels report in, noone with a cell phone can look at a photo and figure it out, this is highly complicated shit, waay beyond ever figuring out, and by the way, there is a possibility one of these waves could take 24 hours to travel that 6,000 miles and then inundate us all ! so, stay ashore, wear your life jacket, swim fins, and keep your emergency radio on for the next 24 hours…  We’ve got this !

When you are doing Tsunami tracking work sitting ashore in Denver, and laying out scenarios, warnings and timetables, for the coastal seaside people who need to know, take some interest and responsibility, a high tension 45 minute vessel strip, followed by a 12 hour “put-it-all-back” exercise is reliant on you... As is an all clear notice, and a summation about your accuracy after-the-fact…maybe next time ?