Tsunami July 29, 2025

 Rut-roh!!!!  Tuesday afternoon we had come back to our place and were relaxing when Dave got a text from our neighbor, who had lived in California for years, back in Oro Valley, AZ about 4:30pm - are we affected by the tsunami?  What? Wait!! What???   I jumped on the news and sure enough, there was a tsunami watch going on due to a 8.8 earthquake in Russia.  We had been in tsunami informed areas before when we were in coastal Washington and the northern coast of Oregon years ago but nothing happened at that time.  Little did we know that we would experience one first hand.  We had such a beautiful sunset that night.

So pretty

We got a message from our AirBnB host to let us know about the watch, but we did not know what that meant, so I googled it and found the 3 stages of tsunami.  In Arizona we have a READY, SET, GO alert system which is pretty self explanatory.  Ready - gather your things, get pets and meds ready, stay tuned to local forecast.  Set means be alert - conditions have deteriorated and be ready to go at a moments notice.  Go simply means - get out of Dodge.  Get, go, gone.  I think the tsunami levels are not that clear.

The 3 stages of tsunami are WATCH, ADVISORY, and WARNING.  We read as much as we could and stay tuned to the news.  We got concerned by 6pm not hearing from the host, we started packing up if we had to get to higher ground.  I also found about the tsunami of March 2011 from Japan's earthquake that destroyed Brookings Harbor - showed that video to Dave and we became really nervous. Granted, we are sitting 128 feet above sea level, but still.  Concerned.

By 9pm, we had 90% of our stuff in the car and then we waited.  We were supposed to be 'hit' by 11:50pm, we were definitely not going to bed, we were going to do a tsunami party watch.

And exactly 11:50pm we could see (the moon was a partial and reflecting off water) the water coming in.  Brookings only had a surge of 1 1/2 feet.  And it was low tide which was terrific since the water was already out.  The waves came in 3 waves, and then it subsided.  

When we got up yesterday morning (when to bed at 12:30am) we saw where the beach was wetter higher than we had ever seen it.  We did find out that Crescent City had a 4 1/2 foot surge.  Google Brookings Harbor March 2011 to see the tsunami that destroyed the harbor.  Very humbling.