4
THE CRESCENT’S ALLURE
CRESCENT CITY is located in Del Norte County, the northernmost county on the California coast. Consisting mainly of state and federal forest reserves, Del Norte County abuts Humboldt County to the south with its principal lumbering coastal town of Eureka. The Klamath River curves northwest through Humboldt County and flows into the ocean at the southern border of Del Norte County, passing the small river towns of Requa and Klamath.
Edging beside Del Norte Coast Redwoods Park and the Redwood National and State Parks, U.S. Highway 101 northbound cuts around Requa and Klamath and passes over mountainous cliffs that overlook the ocean on its twenty-mile path from those towns into Crescent City. The highway then plunges down from these dense mountain forest preserves into Enderts Beach and the beginning of what becomes the city. The towering redwoods of Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park begin on that mountain range and continue northward to the Smith River, which empties into the ocean north of Crescent City. These forest reserves and mountains prohibit any access to inland California except for Highway 199, which winds its way through the forests, canyons, and mountains to inland Medford, Oregon. This is basically undeveloped and wild country—even today.
Crescent City’s harbor and shoreline sweep in a crescent-circle to the west before rounding Point St. George. There are twelve miles of beach and harbor, protected by two breakwaters. In between the breakwaters were the Dutton and Sause piers to the west, privately owned by lumber companies, and Citizen’s Dock to the east, with its over one hundred commercial and pleasure craft docked in a protected leeway.
Once down from the mountains, Highway 101 becomes a five-mile straight shot northward over near sealevel beaches into the business district of town. This thoroughfare is two to three blocks from the ocean with the first breakwater starting midway on the level run from Enderts Beach into the city. Curio shops, motels, restaurants, the Long Branch Tavern, a trailer park, gasoline service stations, and a Texaco Oil bulk transfer station were located on both sides of this straightaway. This initial area, called Highway 101 South, was inundated by the tidal waves to where the lands turn up to the mountains.
The business district of town starts where U.S. Highway 101 turns northwest up M Street and to the right, bordering a thirteen-block section of Crescent City that continued around the harbor and away from the warehouses, lumber yards, mills, and mixed residential/light business areas. From this point on, Highway 101 heads inland for a stretch, past the turn off for Highway 199 and on to Brookings, Oregon, some twenty miles away.
A map of the city, included in the photo insert, indicates the areas that were flooded. The business and residential districts are laid out in a simple grid: the first street intersection where the harbor meets the Pacific Ocean is at A and First Streets. The street closest to the Harbor is First Street (or as aptly called, Front Street), then one block inland is Second, continuing this way to Ninth Street. The alphabet streets parallel each other and intersect the numerical streets. A Street is closest to the Pacific Ocean and the protective cliffs with M Street being where U.S. Highway 101 turns inland at First (or Front) Street. When driving northbound into town, the first major intersection is M and First Street; continuing up M Street, or even A, led to houses and buildings on higher levels of land.
From Front Street and its protective two-foot high seawall, a two- to three-block walk over sage brush, sand, and debris led to the Pacific Ocean. This swath of sandy land was wider farther west of town at Citizen’s Dock and down toward Enderts Beach. In 1964, Front Street was a charming, rustic, and frontier-looking conglomeration of one- and two-story wood curio shops, souvenirs and giftstores, redwood carving shops, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and service stations. It targeted the heavy tourist trade that would begin in two months. The businesses geared to the locals were concentrated from E through M streets with most residential housing located on the somewhat higher land located from A to D Streets at Third Street and going farther inland.
Once past the tourist area of First and Second Streets, the business district became a mixture of camera, drug, restaurant, cleaners, clothing, appliance, department, and other retail stores. Although commercial uses occupied much of First, Second, and Third Streets, residences and apartments were located throughout this area. Newer residential housing tracts were being built above Ninth Street. However, the land was still relatively undeveloped—except for a scattering of lumber yards, mills, and an industrial area—once inland from M Street towards Elk Creek.
Moving away from the ocean, the land gradually gains elevation. Thus, Fifth Street is higher than First or Front Street. However, the land tilts downward to sea level from the protective cliffs in front of the lighthouse and beginning alphabet streets of A and B Streets to the higher alphabet street intersections, starting from D Street to M.
Thus, the highest points of the central city are located at Fifth and A Streets, and the lowest from First and D Streets sweeping around the harbor to Citizen’s Dock and Highway 101 south to the mountain pass. The higher land contours protected some sections of structures and people from worse impacts by the surges.
Completing the city’s layout are Elk Creek and the Elk Creek bridge overpass. Roughly bisecting the town between the business district and the Highway 101 South area, Elk Creek sweeps from the south to the ocean under 101 at roughly First and M Streets.
THE 1964 sea wave hit Crescent City hard because it was in a direct line with the ocean approaches from the Alaskan earthquake’s strike direction. The path of the tsunami was unimpeded by islands or peninsulas and became a direct shot into the harbor. The city is located in a primarily low-lying area, and rivers flow into the sea from above, its middle, and below the town—all with their magnetic pull for tsunamis. The shoal areas off Crescent City’s coastline, such as the Cobb Seamount, contribute to the pull and buildup of wave heights, as well as the ability to redirect tidal waves into the bay.
As the tsunami sweeps more or less parallel to the coast, these shoal areas slow down that portion of the wave that passes over them. The part of the wave that is further offshore isn’t impeded and turns inland to fill the gap left behind by the delayed wave. The two waves then can merge in a wave that is now headed towards shore—or in effect being pulled into the bay—with an increased intensity. The wave feels the bottom contours, surging through the underground canyons. Their energies focus into the rivers and bays, both of which low-lying Crescent City has in abundance.
Tsunami hazards vary widely between coastline places. For example, during a 1995 seismic wave runup in Mexico, the tidal waves hit two neighboring villages. At both locations, the maximum height of the surge was twelve-feet high. Although the towns were one mile apart, the damage inflicted was strikingly different. At Boca de Iguanas, houses were spun around and even stone walls were knocked from their foundation. At nearby La Manzanilla, the ocean simply rose slowly, flooded some portions, and receded as quietly with much less damage. One plausible explanation is that there’s a river inlet and a fifty-foot deep canyon in front of Boca de Iguanas, pointing straight at its heart—just like Crescent City.
Although all coastal towns and harbors are vulnerable to tsunamis and high-tide storm surges, Crescent City has a history of being unusually susceptible from both the north (Alaska) and south (the 1960 Chilean tidal wave), more so than any other West Coast community. This characteristic has been attributed in part to the effects of the Cobb Seamount, located four hundred miles to the northwest at its farthest point. This is a crescent-shaped embankment with its southern boundaries from northern Point St. George to Patrick’s Point, located forty miles to the south of the harbor. This shallower underwater ridge has the apparent ability to redirect tsunamis there by its contours, and it vibrates when hit with this energy, reflecting the waters away then with even more power. Researchers credit the Cobb Seamount as a factor in focusing the 1964 tidal wave and causing it to approach the crescent-shaped bay from below it.
Experts also point to Crescent City’s geographic anomalies of its underwater terrain, jutting shore points, and land-cutting rivers that create shallower areas offshore from deeper bottom levels, as well as a long gradual slope of the ocean floor that leads up to its harbor. With its crescent bay protruding away from the surrounding coastline and shallower waters miles offshore, tidal waves can slow down offshore of the city. Still moving faster than that point, the long sides of a tsunami actually wrap around these slowing areas, swinging towards the bay with one or both sides bent inward, concentrating energy towards that coast. The wave is pulled from below or south of the crescent and rides the long gradual slope of the ocean floor up into its harbor and adjacent areas. The tsunami then surges in from below the bay, even though the crescent faces a southerly direction. This is what happened in 1964—and the ocean then surged through the downtown area, up Elk Creek, curling southeasterly into the 101 Highway South area, which was also hit by waves coming in directly from the sea.
To an extent, every coastal town has a flooding problem, given high tide and heavy storm conditions. However, Crescent City experienced this flooding every few years, even when a particular storm wasn’t necessarily that severe. As one resident observed, “Any time you had a heavy storm and tide, we had some flooding on Front Street.” The city had had these problems from its founding. For example, a high tide in 1866 washed several buildings away from the beach, including part of a large brick warehouse.
The winter of 1861–62 was especially fierce with heavy rains and huge ocean waves. According to published accounts, water washed ashore at high tide as far inland as Second Street. The currents carried in huge logs, swept into Front Street buildings, and caused damage. The tide pushed driftwood forward, splintering the Crescent City Wharf, which the receding sea then carried away.
In 1882, the storm runup from an unusually heavy gale, according to the Del Norte Record, on a “most fearful” day tore six hundred feet off the seaward end of the rebuilt wharf, then owned by the Crescent City Wharf and Lumber Company. Lumber stacked on the deck floated out onto the bay. The damage to the wharf was especially severe, and the local economy suffered, since lumber couldn’t be shipped out or goods received until the dock had been rebuilt. The local newspaper reported, “Rocks and logs and gravel were buried against the fronts of buildings, breaking in the doors and sometimes carried through to the yards at the rear. The water splashed up the inside of rooms and over the bars and counters therein.”
The Smith River to the north experiences the same tide flows as does the Klamath River to the south. As to the Smith River and an especially fierce high tide and storm, the Del Norte Record observed in 1882, “A number of the boats used in salmon catching were carried away, the houses of employees of the cannery were floated out, the breakwater was destroyed, and various other losses sustained in the immediate vicinity of the fishery.”
A similar high tide occurred in 1915 in Crescent City. Old black-and-white pictures memorialized the hundreds of logs and mounds of debris deposited in front of the stark, wooden buildings and structures crowding Front Street. The waterfront and ocean then came to the very edge of the street. To remedy this problem, the town built its two-foot seawall on the oceanside of Front Street, pushed the beach back over two blocks, and built up the area’s height to a few feet above sea level to act as a natural barrier.
LOCAL INDIAN LORE in Crescent City relates that five hundred years ago the “sky became dark and the earth rocked to and fro like a cradle.” Indians fled in all directions to their huts and to the protecting woods. After the earth stopped rocking, the Indians began to emerge from their hiding places. Then the sea swept up from the ocean, covering the entire valley but for a few of the highest places. Only a few natives survived, as the ocean carried everyone else away. Many residents, especially the settlers on the crescent-shaped bay, believe the legend to be true. As yet, however, there have been no geologic excavations to substantiate this story.
In the twentieth century, several notable earthquakes shook and tidal waves rose prior to 1964 to damage U.S. West Coast towns. The April 1, 1946, Alaskan earthquake with a 7.3 Richter magnitude occurred south of Unimak Island, creating another destructive worldwide tsunami that killed 159 people on the Hawaiian Islands (primarily in Hilo, Hawaii). The April Fool’s Day tidal waves raced around the world, creating damage to boats and property in nearly every coastal community from Alaska down to the states of Washington, Oregon, and California.
A ten-foot-high wave surged into Coos Bay in Oregon and Half Moon Bay in Northern California, causing flooding but no reported injuries. A seventy-three-year-old man drowned when the ocean plowed into Santa Cruz, California. However, Crescent City experienced only minor flooding when a relatively small three-foot wave crested in, followed by smaller surges. This tidal wave caused little reported damage, no deaths, and no injuries in the town.
Crescent City residents later experienced run-ups of one foot from a 1946 Japanese earthquake and six inches from another such quake in 1952. Both of these caused extensive damage and deaths in Japanese coastal towns. Later in November 1952, a tidal wave of 7½ feet crested in from a quake off the Kuril Islands of the Soviet Union. This action caught fishing boats still tied to their moorings, sinking four vessels and capsizing another in Crescent City Harbor. An 8.3 earthquake in the Aleutian Islands on March 9, 1957, caused extensive damage in Hawaii, but it was barely noticed in Crescent City with a tidal surge of 1¼ feet.
A May 22, 1960, Chilean tidal wave, however, affected Crescent City and the Pacific Basin. Generated by an 8.6 earthquake off the coast of central Chile, these tidal waves cruised into the Aleutians and Alaskan waters. This tsunami caused no damage or fatalities in these waters, however, and the highest recorded wave was 5½ feet high at Massacre Bay in Alaska. As no local landslide or submarine earthquakes were involved as in 1964, Alaska was spared. The earthquake, however, generated waves that were murderous on the Chilean coast (drowning 1,500 people), the Hawaiian Islands (sixty-one fatalities), and Japan (nearly two hundred killed).
The tsunami raced northward across the Pacific Ocean, pummeling boats and harbors from the Baja Peninsula to Washington. It traveled fourteen hours across the Pacific Ocean to get to California, cresting into all of the state’s coastal towns and causing damage from Crescent City and Santa Barbara to Los Angeles and San Diego. Los Angeles Harbor alone suffered in excess of one million dollars damage with forty boats sunk, and the harbor was closed for one day; San Diego experienced the destruction of barges, docks, and boats. Although the coastal towns of Washington were generally spared, the waves swamped boats and caused damage in Oregon coastal towns from Seaside to Newport and Gold Beach.
The first surge powered into Crescent City at 8:10 A.M. at an initial height of 8½ feet, which rose to eleven feet in forty minutes. Around noon, a thirteen-foot wave surged over the beachfront and up Elk Creek, causing flooding of two to three feet from Front to Third Street. The wave action sunk three fishing boats, including a fifty-foot trawler, and damaged others. The surging waters caused damage at the Dock Café, located just off Citizen’s Dock, and deposited tons of logs and debris for two blocks up from Front Street. This action fortunately didn’t kill anyone and injured only three people. City workmen quickly cleaned up, as the police re-routed traffic and kept order.
An 8.1 earthquake north of Japan in the Kuril Islands created a three-foot wave on October 12, 1963, just six months before the 1964 Good Friday tsunami. This resulted in heavy surges through the harbor but no major damage.
Past tidal waves had caused little extensive damage, few injuries, and rare deaths in U.S. coastal towns, including Crescent City, and false alarms have repeatedly occurred. In some instances, residents had evacuated the entire city, as on March 9, 1957, when the false-alarm scare of a fifty-foot wave traveling at five hundred miles per hour was reported. However, nothing happened or came in from the sea other than the one-foot “burp” of ocean. When the angry residents returned to their homes, they forced the resignation of the sheriff who had ordered the evacuation. And the tsunami of 1960, while not a false alarm, had incurred only minor damage and injuries. The city’s residents remembered those experiences.
This time was different. Although Good Friday had turned into a beautiful moonlit night, the ocean at midnight would be at high tide, just when the first tidal waves were arriving in Northern California.