Tsunami: History, Tips for Preparation, and What the Future May Bring Us

I was born within the Pacific Ring of Fire. Where I grew up in the North Cascades, I could see volcanos from basically every room in the house. Sauk Mountain you could sometimes see the indentation at the top. Mount Baker was nearby, and steam was sometimes seen coming out of it. Of course, there was Mount Rainier as well, towering over Seattle. Part of the reason my Dad thought it was a good idea to move back to his home state of North Carolina was that between floods and all the possible volcanic eruptions, it did not seem like a great place to be in the long term.

We would have left for other reasons regardless, but the Ring of Fire issue was definitely a consideration as well. The main reason my Dad had a bit of a complex about volcanoes is due to being woken up in 1980 by Mount St. Helens exploding 150 miles away. A volcano exploding is quite a thing to have brought you out of bed first thing in the morning for your job at the sawmill. This was when he and my mother were living near Forks, Washington and my brother was about 5. My father described the explosion as sounding like a champagne cork popping. This was followed by a second explosion that was louder and finally the third distinct noise was a grinding and roaring sound that he told me you would have to hear to really understand.

It was a pretty scary event for them, and there was a lot of ash in the air on the mainland of Washington State, but those on the peninsula didn’t get a lot of it due to the way the winds typically blow.

This video is amazing, but the quality is not that great because a lot of it was taken during the actual eruption of Mount St. Helens. I want to point out that the survivor has a moment where he changes his attitude that I think is an important lesson for any survival situation.

Earthquakes can lead to tsunamis, and seismic activity has been more frequent.

The Ultimate Survival ... Alton, Amy Best Price: $17.31 Buy New $16.68 (as of 05:10 UTC - Details) Earthquakes seem to be more common than ever. The November 30 earthquake in Anchorage Alaska surprised everyone with its magnitude. I have to say that I have never experienced an earthquake like that, but I have been under watch for one of the major after effects, the swift and devastating tsunami. This is one thing that is often passed off as just a warning, and while it often is not as bad as they say, the potential is great and it us better to be safe than sorry. While tsunamis are often the side effect of an earthquake, a volcanic eruption can also be a major contributor to a tsunami. This can be especially bad when a large chunk of rock or lava flow breaks off into the ocean. The more the mass, the bigger the tsunami.

If you live near the coast or own property near a coastline, a tsunami is something you should be prepared for. A tsunami can be a wave of water as high as a 100 feet and travel as fast as 500 miles per hour. It is like a wall of water moving at jet plane speeds!

The possibility of a massive tsunami is very real and has happened a lot in the past. For example, let’s look at the current situation in Hawaii and what led up to an amazing amount of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes in 2018.

The Hilina Slump

Prepperu2019s Long-Ter... Jim Cobb Best Price: $7.99 Buy New $8.95 (as of 05:50 UTC - Details) The earthquake of November 29th, 1975 on Kilauea, Hawaii rang in at 7.2 in magnitude. This is still on record as being the last major quake in the Halina Slump. Why is this a concern? Well, this slid the cliff on the southern coast of Hawaii 11 feet further into the ocean. This is an ongoing phenomenon, and the volcanic activity of 2018 has hastened the slipping of the large land mass towards the ocean floor.

Hawaii has seen over 70 slippage events in the past 20 million years, The question is how soon they will experience it again?  It is scary to think that the southern cliff of the island moved 10 cm towards the ocean in a single night in the year 2000.That may not seem like a lot, but it is an amazing amount of slippage. If the Hilina slump suddenly drops the southern cliff into the ocean, scientists predict a mega tsunami. If this happens Hawaii will see waves up to a 1,000 feet high. Hawaii will not be the only area of devastation. A tsunami of this size would cause waves 90-100 feet tall to hit the entire West Coast of the United States.

This is a volcanic earthquake landslide based tsunami system! That is a pretty scary thing to say!

Krakatoa 1883

The Krakatoa eruption of 1883 caused a major steam explosion. The main magma chamber hollowed core was below sea level. When the sea water finally found its way in, this caused a massive explosion. This expelled 12 cubic km of ash into the air that came back down into the ocean causing a gigantic tsunami. It blew dry the Sunda Strait for 30 minutes for 10 km around the island. The resulting tsunami waves are said to have been over 150 feet tall!

The 1883 eruption is believed to have caused at least 30,000 deaths.

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