Crescent City
Jun. 16th, 2005 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
senoritafishI've visited Crescent City a couple of times, before and during college. My primary memories are of a mildewy hotel room, redwoods and a picturesque lighthouse. I'm not sure I remember hearing about the only tsunami that's killed anyone in the continental U.S. They evacuated Tuesday because they did remember.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/16/BAGIUD9G061.DTL
CRESCENT CITY
No such thing as tsunami false alarm
In Crescent City, residents forced to re-live 1964 tragedy
Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, June 16, 2005
No such thing as tsunami false alarm
Crescent City, Del Norte County -- The name of the bowling alley in this small North Coast town was changed a few years ago to Tsunami Lanes, a measure of the lasting impact of a 1964 tsunami that killed 11 people.
On Wednesday, a day after a 7.2 offshore earthquake produced a tsunami warning but no tsunami -- and failed to even knock down any pins at the alley -- residents said they were glad they hadn't been forced to build on the nickname "Comeback Town, USA."
Gilroy has garlic, Castroville has artichokes, and Crescent City has a tsunami siren that is tested every first Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m.
"I still get a little too excited -- I could see this place gone," said Debbie Stover, the owner of Del Norte Office Supply in Crescent City, who rushed from her home to check on the store Tuesday evening, jumped in her van and drove uphill. She was one of about 4,000 people who headed for high ground when the sirens went off for real.
Stover was 6 years old in 1964, but she said her memories of the devastation are vivid. She pointed across the street, at a plaza now called Tsunami Landing. "There was a car thrown through that building over there," she said.
All over Crescent City -- a once-thriving lumber and fishing center that now has an average household income of just over $20,000, but is gaining as a tourist lure -- people were talking.
They were talking about the only tsunami ever to kill in the continental United States, and they were talking about Tuesday's big false alarm.
Authorities were standing by their better-safe-than-sorry response. After 1964 -- and especially after the December tsunami in southern Asia that killed 300,000 people -- Crescent City residents are hyper-vigilant.
It all started Tuesday at 7:50 p.m., when an earthquake more than 90 miles off the coast shook the town's 7,452 residents but failed to stir them.
Julie Duhaime, a 49-year-old waitress at Glen's cafe -- which is decorated with pictures of the wreckage in 1964 -- didn't even feel the temblor while working on her truck in her garage. "All I know," she said, "is my peacocks were upset like there was a raccoon in the cage."
"What was scary," said John Sousa, 48, the general manager at Tsunami Lanes, "was the warning that came after that."
Del Norte County officials, alerted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration soon after the quake that a tsunami would hit Crescent City in 32 minutes if there was a tsunami at all, sounded the sirens at 8:14 p.m. In the next 20 minutes, people were evacuated from low-lying areas, said sheriff's Cmdr. Tony Luis Jr. Then the warning was pulled.
"We're on the coast, so guess what, we were the first one (that would be hit)," Luis said. "We had to react very quickly."
Mayor Dennis Burns said, "I think it was a good call. When it's that close to shore, it's better safe than sorry. We'd do the same thing tomorrow."
Burns is a charter school principal whose students have recently been crafting tsunami survival kits.
Some residents were calm Tuesday night and some were panicked. There were at least three fender-benders but no injuries, Luis said. Most residents and tourists headed to the foothills to the northeast or to Highway 101 vista points to the south.
Some tidal gawkers headed the other direction. Sam Cochran, a 25-year-old student at nearby College of the Redwoods who just completed a research paper on tsunamis, called his mom after hearing about the warning and was told, "Don't go, don't go to the water!"
"So when I got off the phone, I went straight down there," Cochran said.
The only real problem during the emergency, Luis said, was disabled phone lines. A spokesman for Verizon, which has 15,000 customers in the county, said Wednesday that service was spotty for 90 minutes because of callers flooding the system.
While Crescent City residents traded stories about their reaction to Tuesday's warning, some recalled the tsunami that came with little warning.
Over coffee at Glen's, Bill Parker, Del Norte County's former volunteer director of civil defense, recalled what he was doing the night of March 27, 1964, when a magnitude 9.2 quake off Alaska sent a series of terrible waves to Crescent City.
A mortician, Parker had been doing business in Brookings, Ore., when he got a call from the police. He hitchhiked back south with a driver who was stinking drunk. The next morning, he called the governor's office and reported, "Crescent City is gone."
About 150 buildings were destroyed or damaged. Boats were beached, and trailers were pulled into the sea.
"Cars were strewn everywhere," recalled Sandy Nuss. "There were motels and houses in the middle of the street. The water rushed through the appliance store, and when it receded there were washers and dryers and refrigerators all over the place. It was a real mess."
Nuss, a 67-year-old researcher at the Del Norte County Historical Society, said she had watched the tsunami from her home, inland and uphill from the coast.
"People saw the harbor go dry, and no one knew what it meant then," she said. "Everyone knows what it means now."
M.D. McGuire, 81, said he had responded to the first wave by driving to the harbor to see if his fishing boat was still there. He stopped by the Long Branch Tavern to buy cigarettes. Soon, the second wave came and his pickup was carried off by the flow.
When the water crashed through the tavern, McGuire and the bar owner's son, Gary Clawson, moved several people to the roof. Then the two men swam to high ground, got McGuire's rowboat and had a friend tow it back to town.
Clawson picked up five people from the tavern roof, including his mother, father and fiancée. But before they could make it to safety, the boat was pulled into a culvert, and only Clawson escaped.
When McGuire showed a reporter the culvert Wednesday, he had to pause to collect himself.
Asked if he is worried about the prospect of another tsunami slamming Crescent City, McGuire responded, "Not at my age."
Chronicle staff writer Steve Rubenstein contributed to this report.E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/16/BAGIUD9G061.DTL
CRESCENT CITY
No such thing as tsunami false alarm
In Crescent City, residents forced to re-live 1964 tragedy
Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, June 16, 2005
No such thing as tsunami false alarm
Crescent City, Del Norte County -- The name of the bowling alley in this small North Coast town was changed a few years ago to Tsunami Lanes, a measure of the lasting impact of a 1964 tsunami that killed 11 people.
On Wednesday, a day after a 7.2 offshore earthquake produced a tsunami warning but no tsunami -- and failed to even knock down any pins at the alley -- residents said they were glad they hadn't been forced to build on the nickname "Comeback Town, USA."
Gilroy has garlic, Castroville has artichokes, and Crescent City has a tsunami siren that is tested every first Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m.
"I still get a little too excited -- I could see this place gone," said Debbie Stover, the owner of Del Norte Office Supply in Crescent City, who rushed from her home to check on the store Tuesday evening, jumped in her van and drove uphill. She was one of about 4,000 people who headed for high ground when the sirens went off for real.
Stover was 6 years old in 1964, but she said her memories of the devastation are vivid. She pointed across the street, at a plaza now called Tsunami Landing. "There was a car thrown through that building over there," she said.
All over Crescent City -- a once-thriving lumber and fishing center that now has an average household income of just over $20,000, but is gaining as a tourist lure -- people were talking.
They were talking about the only tsunami ever to kill in the continental United States, and they were talking about Tuesday's big false alarm.
Authorities were standing by their better-safe-than-sorry response. After 1964 -- and especially after the December tsunami in southern Asia that killed 300,000 people -- Crescent City residents are hyper-vigilant.
It all started Tuesday at 7:50 p.m., when an earthquake more than 90 miles off the coast shook the town's 7,452 residents but failed to stir them.
Julie Duhaime, a 49-year-old waitress at Glen's cafe -- which is decorated with pictures of the wreckage in 1964 -- didn't even feel the temblor while working on her truck in her garage. "All I know," she said, "is my peacocks were upset like there was a raccoon in the cage."
"What was scary," said John Sousa, 48, the general manager at Tsunami Lanes, "was the warning that came after that."
Del Norte County officials, alerted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration soon after the quake that a tsunami would hit Crescent City in 32 minutes if there was a tsunami at all, sounded the sirens at 8:14 p.m. In the next 20 minutes, people were evacuated from low-lying areas, said sheriff's Cmdr. Tony Luis Jr. Then the warning was pulled.
"We're on the coast, so guess what, we were the first one (that would be hit)," Luis said. "We had to react very quickly."
Mayor Dennis Burns said, "I think it was a good call. When it's that close to shore, it's better safe than sorry. We'd do the same thing tomorrow."
Burns is a charter school principal whose students have recently been crafting tsunami survival kits.
Some residents were calm Tuesday night and some were panicked. There were at least three fender-benders but no injuries, Luis said. Most residents and tourists headed to the foothills to the northeast or to Highway 101 vista points to the south.
Some tidal gawkers headed the other direction. Sam Cochran, a 25-year-old student at nearby College of the Redwoods who just completed a research paper on tsunamis, called his mom after hearing about the warning and was told, "Don't go, don't go to the water!"
"So when I got off the phone, I went straight down there," Cochran said.
The only real problem during the emergency, Luis said, was disabled phone lines. A spokesman for Verizon, which has 15,000 customers in the county, said Wednesday that service was spotty for 90 minutes because of callers flooding the system.
While Crescent City residents traded stories about their reaction to Tuesday's warning, some recalled the tsunami that came with little warning.
Over coffee at Glen's, Bill Parker, Del Norte County's former volunteer director of civil defense, recalled what he was doing the night of March 27, 1964, when a magnitude 9.2 quake off Alaska sent a series of terrible waves to Crescent City.
A mortician, Parker had been doing business in Brookings, Ore., when he got a call from the police. He hitchhiked back south with a driver who was stinking drunk. The next morning, he called the governor's office and reported, "Crescent City is gone."
About 150 buildings were destroyed or damaged. Boats were beached, and trailers were pulled into the sea.
"Cars were strewn everywhere," recalled Sandy Nuss. "There were motels and houses in the middle of the street. The water rushed through the appliance store, and when it receded there were washers and dryers and refrigerators all over the place. It was a real mess."
Nuss, a 67-year-old researcher at the Del Norte County Historical Society, said she had watched the tsunami from her home, inland and uphill from the coast.
"People saw the harbor go dry, and no one knew what it meant then," she said. "Everyone knows what it means now."
M.D. McGuire, 81, said he had responded to the first wave by driving to the harbor to see if his fishing boat was still there. He stopped by the Long Branch Tavern to buy cigarettes. Soon, the second wave came and his pickup was carried off by the flow.
When the water crashed through the tavern, McGuire and the bar owner's son, Gary Clawson, moved several people to the roof. Then the two men swam to high ground, got McGuire's rowboat and had a friend tow it back to town.
Clawson picked up five people from the tavern roof, including his mother, father and fiancée. But before they could make it to safety, the boat was pulled into a culvert, and only Clawson escaped.
When McGuire showed a reporter the culvert Wednesday, he had to pause to collect himself.
Asked if he is worried about the prospect of another tsunami slamming Crescent City, McGuire responded, "Not at my age."
Chronicle staff writer Steve Rubenstein contributed to this report.E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com
