C'mon, Matt!
Attention all stations.
Stand by for
an urgent tsunami warning
for the Big Island and
the islands of Maui, Lanai and Oahu.
This warning is based on a
near Kailua-Kona.
Could it really happen?
Could a giant wave really menace
the beaches of Hawaii?
There is something out there
and it threatens coastlines
around the world.
It's one of nature's
least understood forces: Tsunami!
We often see hurricanes and typhoons
that churn up
higher-than-normal tide.
They can flood
low-lying coastal communities.
But as dangerous
as these storm surges can be,
they are not the worst of
all possible waves.
The real monsters are tsunamis,
freak waves usually produced by
undersea disturbances
like earthquake.
They can race across entire oceans
and swallow cities whole.
And they can leave
tens of thousands dead.
Throughout history,
tsunamis have generated
legendary disasters...
Reversion the shores
nearly every ocean and sea.
Without warning
and without mercy.
killer waves have struck
again and again.
And tsunamis are as mysterious
as they are deadly,
because so few have ever
been observed by scientists.
This extraordinary footage
was shot in 1952,
in the Kuril Islands off
Russia's northern Pacific Coast.
A typical tsunami,
it moved inland like a rising tide,
but with far greater speed
and force.
Fortunately it caused
only minor damage here...
and no deaths.
But tsunamis can be catastrophic.
In the last century alone,
more than 50,000 people
have been killed by tsunamis.
Most had little or no warning.
Few were even aware of the danger.
But for the people of
the Pacific Rim,
deadly tsunamis are not rare events.
They live in the most seismically
active part of the planet,
an area criss-crossed
by earthquake zones
and dotted with volcanoes,
so it's not surprising
that the vast majority
of the world's tsunamis occur here.
In the middle of the Pacific,
the Hawaiian Islands lie isolated
and exposed.
It's people are certainly
no strangers to tsunamis.
But some of them
are acutely aware of the risk.
Dr. Walter Dudley
is director of marine science
at the University of Hawaii at Hilo,
and a leading expert on tsunamis.
We'll have a little
on-site safety briefing.
Today he's taking one of his classes
on a snorkeling field trip.
But first, a few words of caution.
Okay guys, everybody listen up.
We're only about 30 miles
from the epicenter
of two of the largest earthquakes
that have ever struck this island.
In both cases,
they generated
large destructive tsunamis.
The waves took about ten minutes
to get here
and were about 10 to 15 feet high.
So if you are out there on the reef,
and you feel a big earthquake,
drop your gear
and get out of the water
and move ashore
as quickly as possible
Okay, let's have a good lab.
They are among the most catastrophic
of all natural phenomenon.
Unlike things like hurricanes,
there are no warning signs.
The weather doesn't get bad.
You don't feel the earth shake.
It can be just a beautiful day
and then, all of a sudden,
the ocean can come up
and come ashore 30 feet high.
In the Hawaiian Islands,
we've recorded tsunami wave heights
as great as 56 feet on this island
from the 1946 Aleutian tsunami.
In prehistoric times,
wave heights may have reached
over a thousand feet.
Hilo has been struck by tsunamis
as long as there has been a Hilo.
But it was really in 1946
when there was
a built-up downtown Hilo
that we had
a very, very large tsunami
Nineteen forty-six...
after four years of war,
Hawaiians can relax.
At last, their island
paradise is safe from attack.
But more than 2,000 miles away,
a new threat emerges from the sea.
On April 1,
at around 12:30 in the morning,
an undersea earthquake
off the coast of Alaska
generates a huge tsunami.
Within minutes
it will make its first landfall
on the Aleutian island of Unimak,
Inside the island's
Scotch Cap Lighthouse,
the men feel the tremor,
but they have no idea
what's heading their way.
When the wave slams
into their island,
it's more than 100 feet high.
After it passes,
the Scotch Cap Lighthouse
has disappeared,
and so has its crew.
The tsunami continues
racing south toward Hawaii
at over 400 miles per hour.
And just as in Alaska,
no one here suspects a thing.
It's first impact in the islands
is deceptive.
Some waves are as small
as two or three feet,
barely hinting
at the tsunamis awesome power.
By the time it arrives at
Coconut Island in Hilo Bay,
the tsunami has begun to swell
to monstrous proportions.
Its waves wash over the island,
easily overtopping
the 30-foot palm trees.
Lining Hilo Bay
were dozens of homes.
Kapua Heuer's family lived on
a bluff high above the bay.
My family ventured as close as
it could to the edge of this bluff
when we saw
this mammoth wave come in.
It's 32 feet from here
down to the ocean.
We had to step back
because where we were standing,
all of a sudden,
it was ocean.
In the city of Hilo,
residents panicked
when the first waves hit,
fleeing for their lives.
Many try in vain
to outrun the tsunami
We heard this horrible clash in Hilo
and we knew that
the buildings on the ocean side
were being knocked down.
There was turmoil all day long.
The whole town was awash with water
and hurt people and lost people.
We did see people
in the ocean struggling,
dogs trying to swim ashore.
We saw that.
But you couldn't do anything
about it.
The force of the water was so great,
you couldn't venture into it.
You had no chance.
You felt very helpless and wondered
was there anybody out there
that you knew.
One photographer watches in horror
as a wave overtakes a dock worker
trapped on a pier.
In the next frame,
taken after the wave has passed,
the worker is nowhere to be seen...
swept away like so many others.
I had gotten up,
gone downstairs to wash up...
Larry Nakagawa was 14 when the wave
struck his home in Hilo.
...and as I was washing my face
and brushing my teeth,
I heard this strange sound of gravel
being thrown on the pavement.
So my brother came out and said
"It looks like
we are having a tidal wave.
We better get on the tree."
So he hoisted me up
and then my father was hoisted.
He and my father
were on the same branch and,
because of the way the branch was,
he had to hold my father around,
to grab hold of the trunk.
And I think that when the wave came,
he felt that
if he hung onto my father...
the way...
the force of the wave
would push him,
and if he hung on,
he would take my father in.
So he let go
and he went with the wave.
It was strict horror
to go into the mortuaries.
When they found somebody,
identified somebody
all the bodies were covered
they put a tag on a toe.
But they were covered
with a blanket.
And when you pulled back the blanket
to see if you recognized them,
the horror on their death...
was terrible... when they died.
They were frightened.
Eyes open, mouth agape.
And just a terror looked-face
on them.
It was very unpleasant to look at.
Twenty-five miles northwest of Hilo,
the little peninsula
called Laupahoehoe
lies exposed to the full fury
of the tsunami.
Students have just arrived
in the Laupahoehoe schoolyard
and are waiting for classes
to start.
Among them are Bunji Fujimoto
and his two brothers.
That day remains vivid
in Bunji's memory.
I could see a wall of water
coming in from out in the ocean.
It compared to filling up
a cup of coffee.
You just keep pouring
and once it hits the brim,
it spills over,
and that's what happened back here,
up on the wall.
It didn't stop with the wall.
It just came over, spilled over.
And we could see we were in trouble.
We had to run. We started running.
When the water started coming over,
we started running up
to higher ground to my left,
where the school building was.
Fortunately, we made it in time.
A bunch of the other children
didn't make it,
the other students,
mostly students in this area.
My brother was down here
and we never found him.
We always wondered
what he would have turned out
to be like later on.
He was 14 years old and just
getting to his prime of life.
You can't do anything about it.
You can't do anything more than
just think and talk about it
Bunji's brother was among the 25
who died at Laupahoehoe,
mostly students and their teachers.
Almost all of the bayfront area
was nearly totally destroyed.
The businesses were ripped
right off their foundations.
Many of the structures were wooden
and they were totally collapsed.
The railway which was built
on wooden railway ties
the wooden ties were floated out
by the water
and the rails twisted into pretzels.
One hundred fifty-nine people died
that day
Over time, the city would rebuild.
But this tragedy
would mark a turning point.
Those who lived in the shadow
of the tsunamis
were determined to be better
prepared for the next killer wave.
Just two years later, in 1948,
the U.S. government established
the Pacific Tsunami warning center
in Honolulu.
Today, the center remains on alert
around the clock,
coordinating the efforts
of dozens of Pacific Rim countries.
We try to get a warning out
as quickly as possible,
and we have to go to our resources
to find out where the earthquake is
and what its magnitude is.
And then, given that information,
we issue this warning
to the various participants
in the warning system
in the Pacific.
Equipped with state-of-the-art
satellite technology,
seismic sensors, and a vast network
of wave monitors,
the warning center can track
any major earthquake on the planet
and determine whether a tsunami is
on its way.
Scientists know that
an undersea earthquake,
or a volcanic eruption
anything that causes the sea floor
to shift suddenly
can displace huge volumes of water.
When this disruption
reaches the surface,
a series of waves spreads out.
They can move
as fast as 600 miles per hour.
Unlike a normal wave
caused by wind or tides,
the energy of a tsunami
is evenly distributed
all the way
to the ocean bottom.
In deep water, there's barely
a ripple at the surface
But as a tsunami wave
approaches land, the seafloor rises.
The energy is compressed
and the waves can be pushed up
as high as 100 feet or more.
It's always a number of thousands
of people
that could possibly live or die,
depending on our decision.
Here in the Hawaiian Islands,
for example,
every few years, we have...
That's interesting.
We've got an earthquake
to deal with.
It looks like
it's a small local quake
in the central part of Alaska.
The center detects
two or three quakes every week.
Most like this one
present no threat of tsunami.
But even when a tsunami alert
is issued,
not everyone will take it seriously.
When you go from one tsunami
to the next tsunami,
people don't even know
what they are.
So it's hard for them
to even consider them a threat.
First of all, you have to
convince them
that there is such a thing,
and secondly,
that it can cause destruction.
Even in Hawaii,
with its tragic history of tsunamis,
people can forget the lessons
of the past.
In 1960,
the warning center was established,
a massive earthquake
off the coast of Chile
generates a tsunami
that fans out across the Pacific.
Hawaii lies directly in its path.
Early on the evening of May 22,
the warning center issues
its prediction
...a tsunami will hit Hilo
sometime around midnight.
But with midnight long past,
and only small waves washing ashore,
many ignore the alert,
and return to the downtown bayfront.
A few even gather
at the Suisan Fish Market
to watch the waves come in.
The 35-foot wall of water
strikes like a bomb.
Once again
Hilo is brought to its knees,
with $30 million in damage
and 61 dead.
This wave will change Hilo forever.
Today, as you look at downtown Hilo,
you see the highway
along the bayfront,
which used to be the railway
before the tsunamis.
You see a big expanse
of green parkland
soccer fields and places
where people picnic
and play ball.
All of that was homes
and businesses...
very, very heavily populated
before the tsunamis.
If you go there today, you can see
the old roads which go in,
driveways, all leading to nothing.
They see that area and they think
what wonderful urban planning
we have in Hilo
to have all that parkland.
That's planning thanks to
Mother Nature
and at great expense to
the city of Hilo,
both in terms of property
and loss of life.
Tsunamis have been rare events.
There has not been a destructive
Pacific-wide tsunami
in over 30 years.
But if you look at the number
of tsunami events
over the last century
there's been on the average
one destructive tsunami
every seven years
so in many ways you would say that
we're long overdue
for the next tsunami
Walter Dudley is not
the only scientist
who's worried about the next one.
In the Seattle office
of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration,
Dr. Eddie Bernard
is spearheading efforts to alert
the public
to the dangers of tsunamis.
Most certainly they're killers.
If you look at the history of the
United States since World War II,
more people have died from tsunamis
than from earthquakes
in our country.
It's one of
the few natural disasters
that has such broad impact.
Most natural disasters
are very localized.
An earthquake, although it may be
several hundreds of miles,
doesn't affect anything outside
of that hundreds-of-miles area
But if you add up the dimensions
of the Pacific Rim shorelines,
it's on the order of 100,000 miles.
So one earthquake, properly placed,
can affect the coastlines
thousands of miles away.
In Japan, however,
the greatest tsunami threat
comes from earthquakes generated
not thousands of miles away,
but much closer to home.
This island nation lies on
top of one
of the most seismically active
regions on earth.
The Japanese know that
the sea's bounty
is often matched by its wrath.
In 1896, an offshore quake
sent 100-foot waves
crashing into villages
on the Sanriku Coast.
The next morning,
local fishermen returning to shore
were stunned.
A few miles out at sea,
they had not even noticed
the tsunami passing
under their boats.
Now they found
their homes destroyed,
their families decimated.
More than 22,000 had drowned.
Four decades later,
it happened again.
by the wall of water
and many in their crews drowned.
Government aid is being rushed,
but it will be a long time
before this stricken region
can be restored in the land
of the rising sun.
The Japanese are no strangers
to tsunamis.
Killer waves,
like the ones
recorded in the news footage,
visit their shores
with frightening regularity.
But even the Japanese
can be taken by surprise.
In 1993, a quake
off the coast of Okushiri Island
generates tsunami waves
that reach shore
in less than 10 minutes
It's the middle of the night,
and most do not have time
to evacuate.
One of the lucky ones is television
cameraman Hiroshi Nakamura
who records his own escape on video.
There was a straight road
from our hotel to the hills.
We reached the crossroads
as we were driving to the hills.
Usually, we would turn to the left,
but the driver saw something like
white waves ahead on his left side
The disaster I saw from the hill
was just like a war movie.
The devastation was something
that made a strong impression on me.
The fact that
the whole town vanished
is something I haven't forgotten.
Nearly 200 died that night
in Okushiri.
On the southern tip of the island,
where there were hundreds of homes,
only rubble remained.
Dr. Eddie Bernard arrived
in Okushiri two days later
with a special tsunami task force.
Well, my emotional reaction was...
it was like being at ground zero
of the atomic bomb or something...
You just couldn't believe
the destruction.
The power of these waves
was far more than I had expected.
Although I had been studying
this phenomenon for 25 years...
I'd never seen the power
of a devastating tsunami...
and what it actually could do.
You just look at some of
the structures
that were ripped apart
and saw how things
were destroyed entirely.
Then you start to appreciate
the forces at work here.
Looking at a photograph of
a young girl
who wasn't too much older
than my daughter at that time,
really brought home the fact
that most of the people
who died in this event
were young children or the elderly.
What we actually could see
were the remnants of people's lives.
Then you realize that...
these 500 homes had destroyed
the lives of hundreds of families.
And, of course,
death was part of that process.
And so...
you had to be very respectful
of what we were actually looking at.
Although
it was scientifically important,
we didn't want to be disrespectful
for those people who had passed away
And it motivated me as a research
scientist to realize that
the real reason for studying
tsunamis in the research mode
is to save a few lives.
And that's the bottom line.
Today Okushiri is slowly recovering
from its tragedy.
The people are rebuilding
their homes
and repairing their lives.
But because space is
at a premium here,
most new homes must be built
where the old ones stood...
making them just as vulnerable
to the next tsunami.
There is no one spot, however,
that will probably never be rebuilt.
The devastated southern tip
of the island
will likely remain an empty zone,
a reminder of
what was taken by the sea
Two hundred miles to the south
is another town
that has long suffered
the ravages of tsunamis.
Over the past century,
Taro has seen
The people of this town have learned
to carry on in the face of tragedy,
to live with
the continual threat of disaster.
The last great wave struck here
in 1933
It left Taro in ruins, and wiped out
nearly a quarter of its population.
A year later,
the survivors fought back.
They built a wall
to keep the sea
in check the next time it rose.
Today, the wall dominates the town,
a reinforced concrete battlement
and in some spots,
For the people of Taro,
it's become a familiar
and reassuring part of the landscape
In the summer, the seawall
gets warmed up
and I cannot sleep
because the heat reflects off of it.
At that time
I wish there were no seawall,
but I never forget
its reason for existing.
If there were no wall,
I wouldn't want to live here.
Taro is also protected
by its own tsunami warning center.
Besides the usual
satellite technology
there are video cameras,
permitting technicians to
monitor the harbor 24 hours a day,
looking for changes in sea levels
and awaiting the inevitable.
And if alarms are sounded,
Taro is ready.
Crack teams of gatekeepers
carry out regular drills,
closing the wall's six doors
against the sea.
Each of the massive steel doors must
be sealed in under four minutes.
They've never been tested
against a major tsunami.
The seawall certainly offers
the people of Taro
a measure of comfort,
but that may not be enough.
It's 34-foot height
should stop most waves.
But the infamous tsunami of 1896
had waves over 90 feet high.
There's just no way to know
how big the next one will be.
Back on the wave-ravaged island
of Okushiri,
they're building their own wall.
When it's completed,
it will surround nearly
a quarter of the island,
providing at least partial
protection against the next tsunami.
But the people of Okushiri
haven't put all their faith
in reinforced concrete.
In a ceremony held every June,
they pay homage to the dead,
including hundreds of
tsunami victims,
enshrining their memories in stone.
As darkness falls, a bonfire is
lit to serve as a beacon,
guiding home
those who were lost to the waves.
Paper lanterns symbolize
the souls of the victims,
released once again to the sea.
It is an act of remembrance and
perhaps a prayer for deliverance.
The threat of tsunami is not
as distant as most of us think.
Half a world away
from the fishing villages of Japan
lies the Northwest Coast
of the United States.
The town of Crescent City,
California,
shares a tragic legacy
with Taro and Okushiri.
People here can still recall their
own encounter with a deadly wave
March 27, 1964.
Good Friday.
A violent earthquake
off the coast of Alaska
generates an enormous tsunami.
The Pacific Coast of North America,
from Vancouver to San Diego,
lies in its path.
At 11 that night,
Crescent City Civil Defense Chief,
Bill Parker,
receives urgent news.
My first experience with a tsunami
was a teletype
that came into my office
And it said that
there was a probability of a tsunami
and it gave an estimated time
of arrival in Zulu time.
Well, we didn't even know
what a tsunami was,
let alone know how to spell it.
And we certainly didn't know
how to convert Zulu time
to our time.
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
as much as 20,000 in the summer.
Cannon Beach is more prepared
for a tsunami than most towns,
conducting regular tests
of its warning system.
Test, test, test.
But they don't want to frighten
the residents or the tourists,
so the shrill siren is replaced
with something
a little bit friendlier.
The folks in Cannon Beach have
maintained their sense of humor,
but they do take tsunami seriously.
They know they have a lot to lose,
especially here
at Cannon Beach Elementary,
only 400 feet from the ocean.
We're going to add "re"
to the beginning of the word.
So what would be the new word
if you add "re" to the first word?
Brian B?
Regain?
Regain is right.
And how do you spell regain, Nathan?
"R-E-G-A-I-N"
Right.
These kids are well aware
of the tsunami threat.
And they know what to do
when the alarm bell rings.
Let's exit calmly, class.
They have only a few minutes
to get to higher ground.
You guys did it this time
in 13 minutes and 30 seconds.
Great job. Great job.
You hustled all the way up.
I saw people encouraging
one another.
You not only focused on
keeping yourself
and your partner straight,
but you also and safe
but you also were encouraging people
all the way.
I really, really appreciate that.
Great job.
Give yourselves one more hand.
Alright. Great.
Plans are in the works
to relocate the school,
but until then
evacuation drills will continue.
It's the only way
to prevent a catastrophe.
The last tsunami hit Cannon Beach
And in the school playground,
there's chilling evidence
of its power:
The steel swing set bears scars
inflicted by trees,
uprooted and hurled about
by the waves.
Fortunately,
that tsunami struck at night,
when the schoolyard was empty.
The next one could happen anytime.
Cannon Beach is well aware of
the dangers of tsunami.
But there are other towns at risk
along the Pacific Coast...
and many of them are
simply unprepared
For the state of Washington,
there's a resort area
called Long Beach
It's a low-lying sand barrier.
And during the summer months,
sometimes there's as many
as 40 or 50,000 people
that are out there
in recreational activities.
That would be
by far the worst case scenario,
because there's only one way
out of that,
and that poses
a very gruesome picture.
Probably the people couldn't
evacuate in time.
And anything that's not reinforced
concrete would be wiped out.
And it becomes timber in the water,
then causing more damage,
because now it's incorporated
as part of the wave.
Automobiles become floating objects
and they'd be propelled
all over the place.
So as the wave sweeps back
and forth,
it would probably just bulldoze
and leave probably
six or eight inches of sand.
So when it's all over,
it'll be nice smooth sandy beach
without any of man's structures
on it anymore.
Warning systems
and evacuation procedures are
well-established here in Hawaii.
But they're only effective
if people trust them.
Leave the area.
This is an update
on the civil defense tsunami alert.
At this time,
you are advised to stay in your room
until further notice.
Roads out of Waikiki are now closed.
In 1994,
a tsunami warning was issued here
and beaches were evacuated
throughout the islands.
Three hundred thousand people
responded
But this tsunami alert
may have done more harm than good.
Well, in 1994,
there was a large earthquake
in the northwest Pacific Ocean.
It was big enough to have generated
a Pacific-wide tsunami.
The early indications were that
there was significant run-up
of the water in the tidal stations
closest to the earthquake.
So the Pacific Tsunami Warning
Center declared a tsunami warning.
They accurately predicted
the arrival time of the waves,
but they are incapable of predicting
how large the waves
are actually going to be.
When tsunamis occur
as rarely as they do
and with as little money
as is available for research,
we as yet just don't know
how to predict how large
the waves will be.
So in Hawaii the waves
came ashore six inches high.
And unfortunately
most of the public interprets that
as a false alarm,
when in fact
it's just our lack of understanding.
It could've been
a potentially devastating tsunami.
The problem
with over-warning people is
of course,
they lose confidence in the system.
They say,
"Oh, it's just another false alarm,"
and we don't bother.
Or the flip side of this is
they become so cavalier about it
they will actually go to the beach
to see what it is.
So I think it's incumbent upon us
as scientists
to try to find
a more accurate way...
of forecasting the effects of these.
Now the technology
finally exists to do just that.
In a government warehouse
near Dr. Bernard's office,
you can see the future
of tsunami forecasting.
A 20-foot signal buoy,
coupled with advanced wave sensors,
could put an end to false alarms
and help save lives.
Anchored in the middle of the ocean
as part of a Pacific-wide network,
the system will make it possible to
predict the height of tsunami waves
as well as when and where
they'll strike.
Undersea gauges will take the
precise measure of each passing wave
and transmit the data
to the buoy floating above.
A satellite will complete the link
to the tsunami warning center.
The new system
could eliminate false alarms
and build public confidence
in the tsunami warning system.
But there are certain types
of tsunamis
that can strike so suddenly
and with such force that even
the most sophisticated system
would be unable
to provide a warning.
Here in the Hawaiian Islands,
where all of the land is built
by volcanic eruptions,
the islands grow up
from the sea floor,
and then periodically
the sides slide back
down onto the ocean floor.
They've created magnificent cliffs
along the sides of
all of the islands in the chain.
But when those chunks of the islands
slide off onto
the Pacific Ocean floor
as huge landslides
and debris flows...
they have the potential to
generate giant destructive tsunamis
And there's evidence
that they have created waves
as high as 1,000 feet
on some of the islands in the past.
These landslide waves
may be part of Hawaii's future
as well as its past.
Here on the Big Island, a huge crack
in the earth is opening up
It's 60 miles long.
And it's growing wider every year.
Some scientists think
it's gradually detaching one side
of the island from the other.
The great crack is
one of these fault zones.
At one time, it may have actually
had magma in it.
But now, it's probably serving
more like a hinge,
where part of the island
is beginning to slide down
and may someday slip away
toward the ocean floor.
A thousand-foot tsunami on the coast
of Hawaii would be catastrophic.
But a giant tsunami
could happen anywhere,
even without earthquakes, volcanoes,
or landslides.
A few scientists are beginning
to examine another possible cause
extremely remote,
but terrifying.
Recently, the effects of a meteor
impact have been studied.
Depending on the size of the meteor,
you could have some
very destructive waves
generated by the splash
from a meteor in the ocean.
You could have a wave
formed hundreds of feet high.
It is probably the surprise
no one's prepared for.
A giant tsunami
generated by a meteor
may only happen once
every few thousands years.
But it doesn't take a giant tsunami
to devastate a community.
At the memorial park near Hilo,
where the Laupahoehoe school
once stood
today's students gather
with survivors
on the 50th anniversary
of the tragedy.
People ask me,
"If we have another tsunami..."
And I say,
"No, it's not if we have a tsunami.
It's when the next tsunami strikes."
Because there will definitely be
another one.
It might not be this year or next,
or even this decade.
But it could be tomorrow as well.
In Hawaii,
they know what a tsunami can do.
The rest of us would be wise
to listen to their lament
and learn from their experience.