Tsunami Readiness

This is the pretty little seaside village of Winchester Bay about a quarter of the way up the Oregon coast. We are spending two nights here. The area is very vibrant with a marina, oyster market, floating fish & chip eatery, and several other quaint eating places and gift shops within easy walking distance or our RV.

At 7am this morning 3 chaps picked Murray up and they went fishing in a boat on a nearby river. One of them caught this huge flounder. No other fish caught...

While Murray was out I did some beading, chatted to my daughter in Canada, and caught up on my sister & nieces blogs. Needing some fresh air, I had a wander around the RV park and chatted to a guy who filled me in on the reason behind all the Tsunami evacuation signs dotted along the coast road since we hit Crescent City on the north California coast.

They had a tsunami in Crescent City in March 1964. An earthquake in Japan set it off and it levelled the business district and killed 11 people. The chap said there is a major fault line just off the California/Oregon coastline, and with all the other seismic events around the world, it is likely to impact this one. Tremors occur regularly miles off the coast on the seafloor, and it is only a matter of time before there is one large enough to set off another tsunami, so this whole coastline is prepared for such an emergency. Sensitive buoys way out in the ocean record wave height and seismic events which are set to trigger off alarms when they reach a certain level. The alarms sound in the seaside villages and that is the time to get in your car and head for the hills, literally! Each town you pass through has big ‘Tsunami Evacuation’ signs along the roads, and I have checked out our exodus route just in case…