Once a year since we've lived here, we've had a tsunami experience. The first two (one triggered from an earthquake in American Samao, and the second triggered from the earthquake in Chile) were tsunami advisories. While they *did* occur, they were not noticeable by any means. Meaning that we stood on the beach and didn't SEE anything different occur.
This time... wow. Let me start from the beginning.
The last thing I do before I go to bed is check facebook and twitter on my iPhone, and then read a book until I can't keep my eyes open. I remember reading on my twitter feed how there was a 7.9 earthquake that just hit Japan (this is about 9:45pm). I mean, we ARE along the ring of fire, and while that is substantial it is really nothing out of the ordinary.
If you know me, then you know that I sleep with the TV on (I picked this up from my mother... who also sleeps with the TV on and it rubbed off on me). We were both awoken by the Emergency Alert System at 1:30am... you know that BEEEEEP BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEP "this is only a test" thing? Yeah... except this wasn't a test. It clearly said we were just placed under a Tsunami Warning. WTF? Our last two experiences were only advisories... I didn't understand how this was different.
I later learned that a tsunami warning not only means that a tsunami is going to occur, but that it is expected to be greater than 3ft.
We both got out of bed and got on the internet trying to find out if what this was about. CNN, MSNBC, and the Weather Channel were all going pretty crazy over it and kept showing those awful videos of that tsunami wiping out the agriculture fields in Japan. That, and it was upgraded from a 7.9 to an 8.9... which is unheard of. Is that tsunami seriously what we were going to get on the west coast?!
At this point, I was kind of scared. And I didn't fall back asleep until 3:30am because I kept checking the local news to see what we were supposed to do (if anything).
I woke up again at 5:00am because my phone was blowing up with phone calls, texts, facebook messages, and tweets from concerned family members and friends on the east coast who were just waking up. Thank you for all of your concern <3
It was at this time where Hawaii was about to get hit. So I stayed up until 7:00am (when we usually wake up for work) and watched all of the footage of the ocean water receding and then inundating on Hawaii. No, it was not nearly as devastating as Japan, but it was certainly noticeable with the human eyes.
I got to work at 8:00am, and despite the lack of sleep during the night, I was ready and prepared to work a full day and to provide as much support to our Navy as I could. I watched the local news live on the internet and watched as Santa Cruz (located approx. 30 miles north of Monterey, on the northern edge of Monterey Bay) got hammered:
Here is a photo of the surge entering the San Francisco Bay (courtesy of Steve Winter, tweeted by The Weather Channel):
AMAZING....
This was a wild experience. It made me realize that Chad and I really live in a place that is susceptible to natural disasters of catastrophic proportions... and that we don't have any sort of emergency plan. I found some handbooks from USGS that help you get started with building a plan. During the next few weeks, I'll be working on starting a food storage incase something were to happen here.
Now we'll always remember that we were hit with a tsunami just a week before we got married!
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