National Geographic: Tsunami - Killer Wave Page #4

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And we were really devastated as to

what the threat was and what to do.

On March 27,

we received this teletype telling us

there was a good possibility

that Crescent City

would have a tsunami.

And we were really frightened.

But not everyone in Crescent City

was frightened.

Many were intrigued by the novelty

and went down to the waterfront

to watch the waves come in.

Among them was Ray Magnuson.

I parked the car

down by the entrance to the dock

and I met my wife there and

started walking down the road.

As I went down the road,

I could hear a roar.

Some guys said,

"Hey look, hey look,

it's coming over the jetty."

Well, I assumed it was a tidal wave

coming over the jetty,

which was not too good

a thing to be hearing,

since I was not very far

above sea level.

I waited and watched and watched,

and pretty soon up the road,

you could see water coming.

Then there was a cafe

on the right hand side

of the road looking down,

and the cafe slid across the road.

I thought at that time, I said,

"I better get out of here."

So I turned and started walking.

The water was chasing me,

still behind me,

and I got back to the car.

Anyway, the water kept coming

and kept coming,

and as you know, Volkswagens float.

Well, sure enough,

ours began to float

You could hear the explosions

up in town.

Then,

as things began to be destroyed

you could hear things break

a big hunk of lumber

stopped in front of the car

and it made a breakwater,

and the car just floated there.

Water went out and we drove away.

We had no idea of the extent

of the damage.

And we were all dumfounded.

When we looked out,

we could not believe it.

I gave a report to the director

of emergency services

of the state of California.

He was giving a report

to the governor,

and I told him I think that

Crescent City is gone.

The final toll:
11 people killed;

more than $7 million in damage.

And now we all knew:

A tsunami could happen anywhere,

not just far away,

but right here at home.

Three decades later,

the people of Crescent City

are better prepared.

But unlike the Japanese,

they have no seawalls,

no computerized warning system,

no video cameras guarding the town.

If a tsunami struck here tomorrow,

this town could be devastated

once again.

Was the Crescent City disaster

a unique event?

Or could another tsunami

strike the Pacific Northwest?

Giant waves are part

of the oral traditions

of many native American tribes

who lived along these shores.

The Tolowa people spoke of

one such event.

The grandmother told

the two children

to go right away as fast

as they could.

The two children ran as fast

as they could,

upstream away from the harbor.

Halfway there, they looked back.

They could see the water come.

They could hear the people cry.

They could hear the cries

rise and fade away.

When they reached the top

of the mountain,

the boy made a fire

and they sat around it.

When the sun came up,

everything was gone.

They went back to

where their house had been.

There wasn't anything there.

Everything was swept clean.

It's only a legend,

but it may be based upon

a terrifying reality.

Just off shore

and several thousand feet down

lies the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

It's a 900-mile crack

in the earth's crust,

capable of producing

powerful earthquakes.

A tsunami generated here could reach

the coast in less than 20 minutes.

Near the mouth of the Copalis River

in southern Washington...

geologist Brian Atwater seeks

evidence of just such an event...

evidence that would correspond

to some of the ancient stories.

The first indication of

a catastrophe:

a dreary grove called

the Ghost Forest

These trees were flourishing

some three centuries ago,

when an earthquake

caused the river banks to sink,

and what had been high ground

became a salt marsh,

poisoning the trees.

The same earthquake

almost certainly generated

a tsunami here.

Atwater believes he's found more

clues in the banks of the river

telltale signs embedded

in the soil itself

revealing that this region

was indeed flooded by a tsunami.

Got a big piece of burned wood

in here.

I assume it's a campfire.

We might have a fire pit

coming out of this here.

We got a three-layer cake here.

We go back 300 years

or a little more to a time

when this site was a forest.

It had sitka spruce,

it had western red cedar,

and it had native people

who were cooking,

using rocks like this.

The brown layer records a campsite

and the forest floor.

The gray later represents

the tsunami

generated by an earthquake

The tsunami comes in,

dumps the sand on the campsite.

Then the mud builds up on top

of the tsunami deposit,

because the land had dropped

during the earthquake.

But this wasn't the only great wave

to strike the coast of Washington.

Atwater and other scientists have

found more evidence of earthquakes

and tsunami in the distant past.

There was a tsunami

about 1,000 years ago

generated in Puget Sound

by an earthquake probably as large

as the Kobe earthquake,

on a fault that goes right

under downtown Seattle

During an earthquake,

land was moved upward 20 feet.

The floor of Puget Sound

probably moved upward as well.

If the floor moves up,

the surface of Puget Sound up here

moves up.

Temporarily, it's 20 feet higher

than it wants to be.

Gravity takes over

and you get a big wave.

So that's what happened

And it could happen again.

Scientists believe

there's a one in ten chance

of a major tsunami

striking the Pacific Northwest

in the next 50 years.

Here in Washington,

there are many places

where people do not yet have

enough information

from public official

about what they should do

in the event of one of these.

They do not yet have posted

the kind of tsunami warning signs

that one sees in Oregon now

that help to direct a person,

just sort of put it in the mind,

everyday as you drive past it.

You see this on the outer banks

in North Carolina:

"Hurricane Evacuation Route".

These kinds of signs

need to be up on this coast

so in the event

of one of these kinds of tsunamis,

people think, "Oh, yeah,

I remember about that sign.

It said, 'Go up that road."'

And there might be high ground,

far enough up that road,

far enough away that

you could survive

the effects of a tsunami.

Brian Atwater isn't trying

to scare people.

He just hopes

to raise public awareness.

And the message

is finally getting across:

Government officials

have begun developing new strategies

to save lives

when the next tsunami strikes.

The state of Oregon has recently

drawn a line in the sand,

establishing a 300-miles-long

inundation zone along their coast.

Because of the risk,

no new schools or hospitals

can be constructed close to shore

without special permission.

One town that lies within the zone

is Cannon Beach.

It's a quiet little resort town

whose population swells to

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