Tsunami study finds Southern California at risk

L.A.Times ^ | September 4, 2013, 6:21 p.m. | Rong-Gong Lin II, Tony Barboza and Hector Becerra

[BenLurkin]

The biggest challenge would be evacuating everyone before the tsunami hits. Some areas, like Balboa Island in Newport Beach, have only narrow roads for escape routes.

During summer beach season, evacuation could be significantly more difficult. More than 250,000 people at beaches and coastal parks would have to evacuate in the spring. And that number jumps to 1 million in the summer.

"Your life depends on how you respond," Jones said. "People die in tsunamis. They're very, very deadly, but we do have time. We have a few hours."

Unlike earthquakes, which millions of Californians can recall vividly, tsunamis are rare enough that few coastal residents have experienced them, making it difficult for local officials to know how seriously people might take evacuation warnings.

The study's simulation involves a temblor that hits Alaska just before noon on March 27, 2014, which would be the 50th anniversary of the tsunami caused by a 9.2 earthquake in Alaska in 1964.

A tsunami as powerful as that created in the simulation is estimated to occur once every several hundred years.

[GreyFriar]

Another crisis being hyped by those who want to control everything. We need to spend trillions to prevent 9 magnitude earthquakes and build giant barriers in the sea to stop tsunami’s from every conceivable direction hitting the California coast, especially from the east.