- From the 1891 edition of the Encylcopedia Britannica
We are often asked (and often wonder) how a tsunami will affect us here on the eastern side of the Peninsula. Would we be mostly at risk from a huge ocean wave washing completely over this flat, narrow strip of land? Or would we get hammered from both the ocean and the bay?
We were told some years back that there are no definitive answers to those questions, as there has never been a successful computer model showing how ‘the big one’ would affect Willapa Bay. And, besides, we’ve been assured, there aren’t enough people living on the shores of the bay to really matter. (Well, perhaps the statement wasn’t quite that crass, but that was the meaning.)
Yesterday at a regular meeting of the Oysterville Restoration Foundation, we had an opportunity to hear more about the effects of a tsunami on the bay ‘from the horse’s mouth,’ so to speak. Board member and neighbor Dan Driscoll of Oysterville Sea Farms fame, was actually out on his oyster beds the morning after Japan’s big earthquake last week and told us what he saw and experienced.
“There was definitely a tsunami on the bay where we were,” said Dan. “It was higher than a foot – probably about 14 inches – and it wasn’t like a normal wave. Instead of just coming in and going out, it kept coming in for an unusually long time.”
Dan and his crew were on oyster beds off of Leadbetter Point, “the most northerly beds in the bay” he said. “On the other hand, oystermen in Bay Center said there was a four to five foot wave there.”
We were all amazed and somewhat alarmed. After all, Bay Center is only about four miles, as the crow flies, across the bay and a little to the north from Oysterville. According to Dan, there could definitely be “bounce-back” if a tsunami hit when the tides were right. Thank goodness the tide was ebbing last Friday morning. Oysterville could have been shoulder-deep in seawater otherwise!
FOOTNOTE: Acording to Dan’s Aunt Sue, he got more than his share of concerned phonecalls last Thursday and Friday due to his CD, “Tsunami” that came out a few years back!
My first thoughts were of you guys after the earthquake. Glad you weren’t affected.
I take it the chickens survived the tsunami warning? I’m really glad it was uneventful!
What happened when the Tsunami from the Alaskan earth quake the the 60’s hit the bay? In Seaside, we were told the Necanicum River rose to the foundation of the home at the end of 13th Ave. That is probably around 10 feet higher than normal.
Nothing significant happened here on the Peninsula as far as I know, although I heard recently that a wave completely covered the South Jetty. I was living in California then and I remember being concerned but the “tidal wave,” as they called them then, by-passed the Peninsula but really smashed up Northern California — something to do with the configuration of the ocean floor near the shoreline, or so I’m told.
There was a family drowned on the beach. I think there were five or six and they were camping. I remember there was a bit of flap about it all but not much more.
You’re talking 1964, right, Sandy? I had not heard that before. Were they tourists? I think it’s the visitors I worry about most, although I hope there’s been enough in the news the last few years so that most people are informed. Even so, I was horrified to watch that man out at the tide line with his two little kids in Cannon Beach this last Friday morning while the warning was still in effect. What was he thinking!???
Yes, i964. They were tourists and as I recall several of the children who drowned were foster children. That is what the flap was about as to whether it was storm or murder. I think there was some kind of prelininary hearing etc. but don’t remember whether therer was an actual trial.
In 1964 my parents and I were at my grandparents’ summer home in Seaview a block off the ridge. In those days they did not have an elaborate tsunami warning system. The sheriff came through with a bull-horn or so we were told the next day. We slept through the whole thing. The next day we learned that everyone had gone to the high school and the boys thought it was funny to see the girls in their curlers. I was glad we missed it. I did not know anyone had died during that event.