Tsunami info from a former park ranger (Score 5, Informative)

I worked as a Park Ranger at Redwood National Park a few years ago, and this is one of their nightmare scenarios. My housemate was a geology major, and the area right off of the coach is very susceptible to huge earthquakes (8.0+)--one happens every 200 or so years on average. The last one happened around 1700, so another one is fairly likely in the near future.

Towns like Crescent City are at huge risk, and the city and state are trying to compensate with warning systems (that have been improved since the tsunami in the Indian Ocean). While some buildings have been constructed to withstand tsunamis (the national park headquarters was designed as a "flow through" building so tsunami waves will just break out the first floor windows and flow through the building), the best advice is to climb. Get to high ground as soon as you feel the earth shake. Don't wait for a tsunami warning--just climb!

Also, don't go back to the ocean until you know for sure that it's safe to do so. Apparently, many of the deaths in the 1960s tsunami were a result of the mayor and several other people going down onto a pier to suvery the damage. Because tsunamis are really sets of high waves and sea levle changes, the next set of waves washed them away.

One more interesting tidbit--most tsunami deaths aren't caused by the water itself. Instead, what happens is that the water crashes into buildings destroying them. Additional waves then take all of that debris and use it like battering rams to destroy more buildings. It's the debris that most often causes human deaths and damage in the city. Perhaps a good case for building more tsnuami-safe buildings?