I live near the California coast, and there is a small park with beach access near my house. I took a walk down there this morning and the parking lot was closed with signs about the tsunami warning. There was a young couple who had also walked down there past the signs and had decided to park their stroller at the trail head and take their baby with them down the path through the dunes to the beach.
I realize that the danger has largely passed and the risk was always small, but that really seems like tempting fate.
…
According to Dr. Melgar, current models suggest that Wednesday’s earthquake occurred across a stretch of seafloor that was hundreds of miles long. The longer the quake, the more energetic the tsunami can be, he said.
A larger earthquake typically generates a larger wave. But the wave size depends on smaller details of the quake, like the depth of the motion at different parts along the line where the two tectonic plates meet.
“Not all earthquakes are created equal,” Dr. Melgar said. “We’re still untangling the details. It’s going to take weeks to months of research to figure out exactly what happened.”
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Yeah, we’re in L.A., but very near the beach. We got the warnings on our phones, but we didn’t expect anything to impact us (and it didn’t). And according to the signs posted around our neighborhood, we’re just outside the tsunami evacuation zone.
I used to have a terror of tsunami when I was a kid after watching a One Step Beyond episode about one in Hawaii. Really freaked me out.