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Tsunami experts caution
surfers on peril

Tsunami Awareness Month

By Lori Tighe
Star-Bulletin

Hawaii, long overdue for a Pacific-wide tsunami, could experience the greatest natural disaster of the United States when the next one strikes, according to civil defense experts.

It's not a question of if, they say, but when it strikes.

Many of the deaths may well be teens trying to surf the tsunami, fears Dan Walker, Ph.D., retired seismologist from the University of Hawaii.

"If surf's up, school's out and people didn't know what a tsunami is, we could lose a thousand lives," said Walker, with the Tsunami Memorial Institute and tsunami advisor to the Oahu Civil Defense Agency.

April is Tsunami Awareness Month and a statewide public awareness campaign is beginning that targets the surfing community, said Chip McCreery, geophysicist in charge of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach.

"A surfer that tries to ride a tsunami can be easily killed by its effects," McCreery said.

Experts are concerned because in 1994 during a tsunami warning, school was canceled and as many as 400 youths went to the North Shore to surf the pending tsunami. But it was a false alarm.

"If we had a significant tsunami, a lot of those kids would have died," said Walker, who educates kids on tsunamis.

The Pacific Tsunami Museum is producing a public service video aimed at surfers. Copies of the video, funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will be distributed free to surf shops around the state.

"This is a funny video with a serious message," said Donna Saiki, museum director.

On April 1, 1946, elementary schoolchildren in Laupahoehoe, near Hilo on the Big Island, saw the ocean receding into an extremely low tide. They ran out to scoop up the fish. The ocean returned and receded again.

But when the third wave of the tsunami came, the children couldn't escape it, Walker said. Sixteen students and five teachers died among a total 159 people across the Hawaiian islands.

"No matter what they learned in school, they didn't learn what they needed to save their lives that day -- to recognize the signs of a tsunami," Walker said.

Tsunami waves, set off by earthquakes, underwater landslides or meteors hitting the ocean, can travel up to 500 mph in the open ocean and slow down to 30 mph when they hit land. They can hit heights of 100 feet and come in a number of waves.

"Unlike a surfing wave, the other wave of a tsunami is out on the horizon and can be huge," Walker said. "The wave is tremendously thick and it keeps coming and coming and coming. When it washes back out, it'll take cars, telephone poles, trees and create unusually strong currents. It's unimaginable."

Everyone living in Hawaii needs to be prepared for the next tsunami, said Oahu Civil Defense Agency Administrator Joe Reed. He, like other experts, believes Hawaii residents have become complacent because the state hasn't experienced a major tsunami since 1964.

"I think the next substantial loss of life to these islands will be from a tsunami," Reed said.

People need to know if they live, work, go to school or travel in a tsunami zone, information found at the beginning of the White Pages telephone book.

"I'm not convinced people who are at risk know it," Reed said. "You're either in the danger zone, or you're not."If you live in a tsunami zone, you need an evacuation plan, he said.

Anyone with questions about their tsunami risk can call Oahu Civil Defense at 523-4121.

Tsunami Awareness Month The public is invited to visit tsunami facilities during April. The Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo offers free admission on Saturdays. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach will sponsor an open house each Friday and Saturday this month. More Web information: National Tsunami Mitigation Program --http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami-hazard Pacific Tsunami Museum -- http://www.tsunami.org International Tsunami Information Center -- http://www.nws.noaa.gov/pr/hq/itic.htm Pacific Tsunami Warning Center -- http://www.nws.noaa.gov/pr/hq/ptwc.htm West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center -- http://wcatwc.gov