AUTHOR’S NOTE
THE RAGING SEA was written and made ready for publication before the tragic events of the Indian Ocean tsunami unfolded. The magnitude of this new disaster shows how vulnerable all of us are to such calamities, despite the lessons and experiences of the past. When the December 26, 2004 great Sumatra–Andaman Islands earthquake rumbled off the western tip of Sumatra, Indonesia, and its mega-tsunami surged away, earthquake monitoring centers immediately categorized this quake as the worst in forty years—dating back to the March 27, 1964, Good Friday, Alaskan earthquake and the resulting trans-Pacific tsunami that this book describes.
The December 26 earthquake produced the largest trans-oceanic tsunami since the 1964 tidal waves,1 killing more people than any other tsunami in recorded history. The devastating earthquake occurred where the India and Burma plates collided at the Sunda trench, which unleashed tremendous energy as, similarly, did the 1964 event with the North American and Pacific plates off Alaska.
The Indian Ocean tsunami affected numerous countries bordering the Indian Ocean from the region of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar (Burma) to India, Sri Lanka, Somalia, and Maldives. Its death toll, devastation, and suffering were mind-numbing, and all of humanity could empathize with this tragedy, as was seen in the extent of the aid-relief operations.
The 1964 tsunami was the product of the largest earthquake in North American history and the second largest one ever recorded. In this book, as historical earthquakes and tsunamis are compared, all magnitudes are given on the Richter scale. On this scale, the Alaskan quake was 8.4–8.6 and the Indian Ocean quake was 8.5–8.9; under another measurement—the moment magnitude—the 2004 quake was 9.0 and the Alaskan hit 9.2. Both were extraordinarily powerful earthquakes and of the worst type resulting from vertical movement of plates that displaced trillions of tons of ocean water, and generated large surges, or tsunamis, as opposed to horizontal movements that don’t create these surges.
The Alaskan tidal wave caused death and destruction when it coursed down from Alaska through British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, and into Mexico. This tragedy brought about the creation three years later of the West Coast/Alaskan Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska. Until now, the only comparable event to 1964 was the 1946 April Fool’s Day earthquake and tsunami that started in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Although this tsunami caused more deaths in Hawaii, the destruction was limited to the Hawaiian Islands. This event led to the creation two years later of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center at Ewa Beach in Hawaii. The 1964 tsunami was by far the worst for the continental United States and the only one that destructively slammed down the entirety of a U.S. coastline.
As we try to comprehend what happened in the Indian Ocean, questions loom: when will another cataclysmic event occur, in what intensity, and where—including the risk of another terrible one slamming into the United States. The stark and frightful Indian Ocean tsunami pictures are unforgettable. Many people who didn’t know what the word “tsunami” meant or what one looked like, now understand its power.
Geologists call the Pacific Ocean Basin the “Ring of Fire,” because it’s rimmed by most of the world’s active volcanoes, and most of the world’s earthquakes and ensuing tidal waves occur in areas bordering this ocean. The Pacific Plate and its “Ring of Fire” run in an irregular line from the southern tip of Chile in South America, up the Pacific coasts of Central and North America to Alaska, west along the Aleutian Islands arc, south through Japan and the Philippines, then arcing to New Guinea and New Zealand.
Although the extreme western edge of this “Ring of Fire” extends into the Indian Ocean (the point where the 2004 earthquake struck), no warning system exists due to the rarity of tsunamis in that ocean; the Krakatoa volcanic explosion and tsunami in 1883 was the last major one in that area. As most of the quakes causing destructive tidal waves have occurred in the Pacific Ocean Basin, the U.S. west coast is at great risk, both from nearshore earthquake-generated tsunamis and from those that travel from Alaska, Russia, or even offshore Japan. This fact, however, doesn’t exclude the rest of the U.S. from being at risk.
The 1964 Alaskan earthquake and its ocean-going tsunami coursed down the entire U.S. west coast in scant hours. The waves appeared at midnight on Good Friday offshore Crescent City, California, moving faster than a jetliner, arriving four and a half hours after its creation. The 1964 tidal waves caused one hundred and twenty-two deaths, mostly in Alaska; however, Crescent City on the west coast received the brunt of the destruction with eleven people killed.
What kept the death count low, fortunately, was that the 1964 tsunami coursed down late at night, when people were in their homes or buildings, not “out and about.” As opposed to what happened in the Indian Ocean tragedy, the U.S. tourist season didn’t start for another two months. The first waves at Crescent City were small. If the initial ones were like the last one, which was nearly twenty-five feet high when it later surged two miles inland, the tragedy there would have been much worse.
As in the Indian Ocean calamity, the tidal waves struck children and the elderly hardest—because they are the most defenseless. The building structures in Crescent City deflected the waves’ power and kept down the death toll, including the destruction. As with similar disasters, food, potable water, medical facilities, and housing were in short supply in the hardest-hit areas. Later, the police, highway patrol, and army reserves had to step in and keep order—to prevent looting and keep out the curious. Controlling disease, safeguarding sanitation, and reestablishing heat, power, and telephone lines were also top priorities. A U.S. navy aircraft carrier anchored offshore to provide communication facilities, but the reconstruction efforts at Crescent City took years.
A terrible “Perfect Storm” combination of factors rushed together in the Indian Ocean: the Sumatra centered calamity was close to population and tourist centers with very high densities, there was no warning; people were curious and actually walked on the exposed seashores, in some cases to collect fish and seashells as the waves rushed in (and, unfortunately, this always seems to happen); the inland areas in the affected countries were generally low-lying (Crescent City had protective hills and cliffs); and the first waves that powered over their coastlines were among the worst.
The Indian Ocean calamity is a tragedy beyond words, and the death count and human suffering are incomprehensible. Out of this disaster, however, an Indian Ocean Warning Center will finally be created, as were the two previous centers in Hawaii and for the U.S. west coast and Alaska.
The “Good Friday” earthquake and tsunami created tidal waves that were just as powerful. Ordinary folks rose to uncommon heights of courage, and many others responded with great compassion. Amazing stories of terror and coolness in the face of certain death occurred. Whether loved ones lived—or died—in those maelstroms seemed to be totally capricious.
As to the question “Can this happen again in the United States?,” the answer is “Absolutely—the only question is when.” Destructive tsunamis are of two types: oceangoing as in the 1964 Alaskan earthquake—where warnings can decrease the numbers of deaths and injuries, but not the destruction—and local landslide tidal waves. When an earthquake centers off coastal areas, huge tsunamis can surge over lands and structures within fifteen to twenty minutes. No warning center can be constructed to safeguard people and places from these occurrences. Imagine what would happen if a tidal wave surged inland that fast from offshore a major city like San Francisco or New York City.
Potential tsunamigenic fault structures exist offshore the U.S. west coast, most notably in the Cascadia subduction zone. This fault extends from southern Canada to northern California, and it varies from thirty-two to seventy miles off the coastline where the Pacific and North American plates clash. The plates last ruptured in a large earthquake in 1700 that caused thirty-foot-plus waves to crash against the Pacific Northwest, but it “heated up” as recently as 1992 with a 7.1 quake that created a tsunami, although non-destructive, that hit Northern California. Great ruptures along this zone would cause local and Pacific-wide tsunamis that would severely batter the western United States, many of its coastal towns and cities, and impact Alaska and Hawaii. People traveling on coastal routes, touring, camping in beach parks, or tied up in traffic jams wouldn’t hear or couldn’t react in time to any warning sirens, even if they were in place.
The 1964 earthquake caused an eight-foot fluctuation in the tides in San Francisco Bay, as thousands of people rushed there to catch a glimpse of the tidal wave. Offshore Los Angeles, a 5.2 submarine earthquake in 1930 in Santa Monica Bay generated a twenty-foot wave at Santa Monica. Although various geologists believe that large tsunamis are not possible, for example, off San Diego, a 5.2 Richter-scale earthquake occurred on June 15, 2004, fifty miles off San Diego and beneath the ocean in the San Clemente Fault.
Geologists have discovered old deposits indicating a monstrous tidal wave off the Gulf Coast of Texas. The east coast of the United States has a lower risk, as hurricane surges are more likely to be the most severe ocean-caused catastrophes that residents will face, given its lesser frequency of earthquakes. However, the eastern seaboard—like the Indian Ocean—does not have any warning system in effect. Some geologists believe that the outer sloping edge of the Continental Shelf along the east coast has the potential to cave in strongly enough to create major tsunamis offshore large cities from Boston south to Miami, not to mention the numerous smaller coastal communities in between.
Additionally, some experts are concerned with the possibility of a tsunami from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands off West Africa. Although this area is thousands of miles away from the eastern seaboard, a resulting tidal wave from its collapsed volcano would travel in about eight hours to cause extensive destruction on the entire east coast with New York City a prime target. In that short time span, authorities would find it impossible to move massive populations to safety. As substantial waves would be impacting the coasts of Britain, Spain, Portugal, and France, major arteries and bridges leading out of the large cities on both sides of the Atlantic would be jammed with people and vehicles.
When another quake of the 1964 intensity occurs, there is no question that the death and devastation caused will be substantially higher, regardless of which coast is impacted. Populations are denser and have increased substantially in coastal areas, housing developments front the oceans in countless areas, and many people still don’t truly understand the awesome power of a tsunami. If a sub-marine landslide occurred either in the Cascadia subduction zone or the Continental Shelf, the results would be catastrophic. To understand these risks, we need only look at what has already happened.