March 11, 2011 11:50 PM
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| Fishing boats crash into one another as tsunami surges from Japan earthquake slam into the harbor, Crescent City. (AP) |
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / KCBS) — A tsunami triggered by a massive magnitude 8.9 earthquake in Japan rushed onto Northern California’s coast Friday, causing powerful surges that destroyed boat docks in Santa Cruz and Crescent City, sent beach-area residents in Pacifica and Half Moon Bay evacuating to higher ground and swept at least one man out to sea.
California Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties to the south of San Francisco and Del Norte and Humboldt counties to the north, saying the ocean surge from tsunami waves had put infrastructure and public safety in “extreme perile.”
While much of the Bay Area was not directly affected, precautions were taken across the region after a Tsunami Warning was issued due to wave swells that began arriving just before 8 a.m. The warning was downgraded to an advisory by 4 p.m.
The surges had subsided along the West Coast by evening, according to the Tsunami Warning Center.
Missing NorCal Man
The U.S. Coast Guard dispatched helicopters in search of a missing 25-year-old man, who officials said had been taking photos of the tsunami with friends at the mouth of the Klamath River near Crescent City when a wave pulled him out around 10 a.m. Friends who tried to rescue him made it back to shore, but the man remained missing.
The Coast Guard said the search was suspended after seven hours and they declared the man dead Friday evening when crews in boats and in helicopters covered more than 250 square miles looking for him.
The man’s identity was withheld as authorities tried to contact his family, said Joey Young, a spokesman for the emergency operations center of Del Norte County.
“We had one person reported missing who has been confirmed dead,” Young said. “The Coast Guard has been doing a search for the body, but the oceanic conditions are making it very difficult.”
Added Coast Guard Lt. Todd Vorenkamp, “The waters here are very cold and very rough seas, so if you’re not in a survival suit or a dry suit, then your chances of survival are very slim.”
“I don’t know if it was a tsunami that got this guy or just standard northern California waves,” Vorenkamp continued. “But there was tsunami activity in the area at that time.”
He explained, “The shoreline here is a dangerous, treacherous place on a good day, and with a tsunami warning, it’s exponentially worse.”
“The Northern California coast is a very unforgiving maritime environment on a good day,” he indicated. “It happens more times than you think when a person gets washed away by a wave.”
Crescent City Damage
Local damage seemed to be restricted mainly to the Crescent City and Santa Cruz harbors, where dozens of vessels crashed into one another and were sinking.
Crescent City Councilwoman Kelly Schellong said the docks and harbor there were “pretty much completely destroyed” after being hammered by at least three tsunami waves, including one reaching a record 8.1 feet — even higher than the 7-foot surges that hit Hawaii.
Some fishermen in Crescent City had fired up their crab boats and left the harbor to ride out the expected swell.
“Many boats left the harbor” before Friday morning’s evacuation of the downtown area, said Young. “Some did not.”
Water rushing into the harbor had destroyed or damaged about 35 boats and ripped chunks off the wooden docks, as marina workers and fishermen scrambled to secure property in between surges. When the water returned, someone would yell “Here comes another one!” to clear the area.
“The damage from this is probably going to go into the millions, easily,” said Bill Steven, a commander with the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office.
Ted Scott, a retired mill worker who lived in Crescent City when a 1964 tsunami killed 11 in his town, watched the water pour into the harbor.
“This is just devastating. I never thought I’d see this again,” Scott said. “I watched the docks bust apart. It buckled like a graham cracker.”
Vincent Mealue, who also survived the 1964 disaster, didn’t take any chances and picked up his grandson on the edge of the evacuation area.
“Anybody who has lived here a long time takes this pretty seriously,” Mealue said. “There have been a lot of scares, but it only takes one time to be the real deal.”
The waves, however, did not make it over a 20-foot break wall protecting the rest of the city, and no serious injuries or building damage was immediately reported.
Three Red Cross shelters were set up to help the displaced. Young could not estimate how many of the city’s 5,000 residents were evacuated.
That evacuation was lifted by nightfall and authorities reopened a 55-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 101 in the area that was closed for much of the day.
The Crescent City area is particularly vulnerable to tsunamis because it lies directly west of the Mendocino Escarpment, a raised ridge on the ocean floor that sits between two ocean plates and directs wave energy at the nearby coastal city.
“Crescent City is a special case. They always get it worse, it doesn’t matter where the tsunami comes from,” said Paul Huang, a seismologist with the federal Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, which monitors the West Coast.
In 2006, large tsunami waves triggered by a massive earthquake off Japan’s coast caused nearly $1 million of damage to Crescent City’s harbor, and some residents scrambled to safety last year when Chile’s earthquake sparked warnings but ultimately no huge swells.
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