National Geographic: Tsunami k*ller Wave (1997)

[bunniefuu]

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.

k*ller 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 sh*t 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 k*lled 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 w*r,

Hawaiians can relax.

At last, their island

paradise is safe from att*ck.

But more than 2,000 miles away,

a new thr*at 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 d*ed.

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 d*ed 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 d*ed

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 k*ller 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 thr*at 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 thr*at.

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 b*mb.

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 K*llers.

If you look at the history of the

United States since World w*r II,

more people have d*ed 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 thr*at

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.

k*ller 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 w*r 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 d*ed 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 b*mb 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 d*ed 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 thr*at 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.

cr*ck 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 thr*at 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 thr*at 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 k*lled;

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 cr*ck

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 b*rned 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 thr*at.

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 cr*ck

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 cr*ck 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.