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climber
Sozo
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Mar 11, 2011 - 12:50pm PT
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Horrible, so glad your OK Jan, and pray that help can get to all asap!
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:01pm PT
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Chaz, Tsunami waves are different then wind created waves. Wind created waves are only on the surface. A Tsunami is a wave created by the earth moving beneath the sea. Either the earth moving up and down in a quake, or caused by a landslide under the water. So its not a surface wave, but a column of water racing across the ocean. This means that many things can affect how big it is when it finally comes ashore. A one meter tsunami can engulf a shoreline completely. Sweeping people out to sea, moving large ships. This is because it can have way more volume of water with it then a surface wave. Japan was just hit with a 21 foot wave. It gets hit by 21 foot wind driven waves every winter. They don't cause the same kind of damage because they don't have the same kind of volume of water with it, nor the same force.
So its not the height of the tsunami so much as it is the volume of water and the force which it arrives with that causes the damage. A one meter Tsunami with enough force can wash inland for miles. Sweeping cars, boats, and houses along with it.
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Big Piton
Trad climber
Ventura
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:06pm PT
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If you want to see live coverage of our tsunami in Ventura go to KTLA.com
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:08pm PT
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It seems a warning would have been appropriate, not sending the cops to rope off the beaches with crime scene tape.
That's the over-reaction.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:17pm PT
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No wind!
I've been watching.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:18pm PT
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The people who stand on the beach during one of these things just don't understand how Tsunamis work. Right now I don't think that we have the sensors available to truly predict how bad a tsunami will be because we can't tell how much force is coming with it. Crescent city california was his by one in 1964 and nearly wiped out. That same Tsunami did very little damage on the rest of the california coast. This is in part because of the direction the Tsunami was coming from, and the shape of the ocean floor leading up to Crescent city, which magnified the force.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:25pm PT
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It seems a warning would have been appropriate, not sending the cops to rope off the beaches with crime scene tape.
People are ignorant and willfully stupid. Better to spend the small amount of money needed to divert cops to the beach, versus having to mount rescues if the Tsunami turns out to be drastic. Just look at the video of the Tsunami hitting Japan. That is from a 21 foot wave. Most folks think a 21 foot wave will hit the shore and thats all. They don't realize that Tsunamis are a much different kind of wave. Plus they often come in groups. So the first one pushes a bunch of water ashore, and the nexts ones drive it further and further inland. A person isn't able to outrun these things. Just look at the video of the one in Japan, or the one that hit Taiwan.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:37pm PT
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The Tsunami that hit Indonesia in 2004 and killed 220,000 people was measured at 2 feet out at sea. It came ashore in some places at over 50 feet and others places more like a river, then a wave. The places it came ashore like a river had just as much damage as the places it came ashore as a giant wave. That is because its the amount of water flowing with the Tsunami more then it is the height.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:37pm PT
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If 21-foot waves are expected, of course you move people out of the way.
Here, waves weren't even expected to hit two feet - less than the average daily tidal fluctuation.
Look where the wet sand is in Santa Monica:
http://media.myfoxla.com/live/santamonica/
High tide is higher than that.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:39pm PT
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f 21-foot waves are expected, of course you move people out of the way.
Here, waves weren't even expected to hit two feet - less than the average daily tidal fluctuation.
Look where the wet sand is in Santa Monica:
http://media.myfoxla.com/live/santamonica/
High tide is higher than that.
Read my post above. The Tsunami that hit Indonesia was only 2 feet out at sea. In some place it came ashore as only a 3 foot wave that was more like a river then a wave.
You really need to understand that it is the volume of water and the force with it that creates the damage. not the height of the wave.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:40pm PT
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6.6 just hit.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 11, 2011 - 01:49pm PT
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Did you see where the wet sand was in Santa Monica (closed) Beach, Mr Moosie?
They may as well close it every day for high tide.
Crescent City was expecting bigger waves, so clearing out the low lying areas makes sense there. ( I hope nothing happens to Beacon Burger )
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Mar 11, 2011 - 02:02pm PT
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I repeat. The Tsunami that hit Indonesia was measured at 2 feet at sea. It killed 220,000 people. There is video of it coming ashore and it looks like a 3 foot wave. ( on that beach. on other shores it hit 50 feet ) That 3 foot wave turned out to be a giant volume of water that came ashore like a river and killed a bunch of people.
So its not the height of the Tsunami that matters. Its the volume of water and the force that arrives with it. Because the sea bottom can magnify this, as happened in Crescent city in 1964, they can't really predict how massive these things will be. There isn't enough data yet because every earth quake is different. How it affects the bottom of the ocean. Whether it is an upthrust earthquake, or it causes a landslide. These are just two of the things that cause Tsunamis and each creates different volumes and different forces. Then you add in the sea floor that it travels over and that can change it also.
So I repeat, its not the height of the wave, but the force and the volume of water with it. A one foot wave with enough water behind it could come ashore a long ways and wash a lot of people out to sea if they were all just standing there on the beach.
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Mar 11, 2011 - 02:14pm PT
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I am hearing on local news now that Cal Tech reports a land shift, the entire Island of Japan has moved 8 feet east!!
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Mar 11, 2011 - 02:16pm PT
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Sneaking up on Pearl Harbor?
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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Mar 11, 2011 - 02:17pm PT
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Heard that a subsequent set of waves hit Hawaii that were twice as big as the initial set. It seems folks are dropping their guard after the first set of waves wasn't that big a deal. People have been filmed climbing Haystack Rock in Oregon following the first wave.
School has been cancelled along the coast, and folks have been driving into the Coastal Range high ground. Portland's Outdoor School program has a camp at the coast. Those kids were awakened and marched to higher ground. Parents were told that they are OK and not to attempt to pick them up. THey are getting another geology lesson and not the marine biology one that they expected today. I think I need to take a colleague (parent) out to lunch today to occupy her mind....
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Mar 11, 2011 - 02:22pm PT
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The devastation in Japan is terrible, and there is a lot of loss of life... But I am more worried about the nuke site out there that has lost offsight power and the Emergency Diesel Generators (EDG) didn't start, so they have no power... And that is BAD!!! They need to get those things up and running, and/or get power back to that plant, ASAP.
#1 is to keep the fuel cool.
Cooling is provided by circulating water with pumps, which require power, either electrical power, or steam. If a unit is offline, it is all electric pumps that provide that cooling. When offsite power is lost, the EDGs provide the power to safely shut down the unit(s) and provide power.
They need to get the EDGs up and running and/or restore offsite power.
The EDGs, of which there are more than one per unit for redundancy, have numerous redundant systems, so the system CANNOT fail. They are designed, as a system, to be that way, since a lot rides on it. I cannot, for the life of me, see how all of them could fail.
The EDG's used at nukes are the same types of diesel generators that are used to provide the power to drive a big passenger ships, oil tankers, or container ships, and all of its systems. They take up entire rooms... Big rooms.
At US plants, even when we take one out of service to work on it, making it unavailable, we eneter an LCO (Limited Condidtion of Operation), and have a set time to get it available, or we have to take the unit(s) offline until we get it back in an avaliable status. Also, here in the US, these are all tested often, and if they do not start in <10 seconds, it is an automatic LCO.
Note - I believe that whenever an LCO is entered, the NRC is notified.
And, if we lose off-site power, the EDGs kick in, and we immediatley shut the units down, and the EDGS continue to provide power to keep the fuel cool, until off-site power comes back.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Mar 11, 2011 - 02:23pm PT
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Mark Not-circlehead
climber
Martinez, CA
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Mar 11, 2011 - 02:27pm PT
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Santa Cruz Harbor has significant damage, and Cresent City harbor also has significant damage:
Officials in Crescent City are reporting damage after tsunami waves began hitting the harbor this morning.
”The harbor has been destroyed,” said Crescent City Councilman Rich Enea in a phone interview at 9:45 a.m. “Thirty-five boats have been crushed and the harbor has major damage. Major damage.”
Del Norte County Sheriff Cmdr. Bill Steven said most of the docks at the harbor are gone. Additionally, a recent surge filled the entire harbor and they are expecting that some of the other waves could send water into the harbor's parking lot, Steven said.
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