Monday, February 4, 2013

One Year after the Tsunami, we shared with Japan

 Most everyone knows that the Tsunami was major and that the impact of it upon Japan is inconceivable on so many levels.  Our Small, Northern California and Southern Oregon harbors had a bit more than sympathy pains for our Japanese brothers and sisters.
Starting between 7 and 8 AM, we began to experience our own Tsunami, and the waves cycled through the commercial boat harbor, destroying boats and docks and peoples incomes, but most devastatingly of all, Pulling two people into the sea, in Southern Oregon at Pistol River (They managed to get ashore) and destroying the life of one young man who was pulled out to sea in Northern California, but who's body was found long weeks later in Washington.
 His Father, Jon Weber, is hiking the route from where his son's body was found, to here where his son was pulled into the sea, that story in the Del Norte Triplicate at




There were several crabbing and fishing boats left shattered on the harbor floor, so this big crane was bright in to help raise the broken boats from the harbor.  







This is a picture I took of my TV screen when they were showing how the water from the harbor was being sucked out of the harbor and then came flooding back in in 10 minute cycles

My Aunt sent me this paper with our hometown on the front page news, from her home near Pittsburgh PA

Although surviving the Tsunami is not a free card other, this sailboat survived the big tsunami, only to lie broken on the rocks in the spring rains and flooding of January 2011









 This smaller crane was here just last month to help fix the channel markers which were broken and moved and have caused a headache for boats coming in and out ever sine






 This dredge loaded up barge after barge of the silt which had been deposited in the harbor and filled the boat basin during the tsunami

Crescent City won one of the $10, 000 prizes from Reader's Digest in the We Hear You America Contest to help with the rebuilding, but as the Curry Coastal Pilot said

"Visitors to Crescent City Harbor this week will find a port that is a shadow of its former self, the surviving boats in the fleet crowding around a handful of new docks. 
Emergency funds to repair and replace docks and other facilities have been hindered by state and federal bureaucracy. Crescent City’s port was one of three California ports to be damaged by the tsunami, while Brookings’ port was the only one in Oregon.
Still, the work completed so far is impressive: the removal of 61 pilings, the dredging of 83 barge-loads of silt deposited by the tsunami, and the repair of about 500 feet of protective rock slope, all at a cost of around $5.1 million. 
“It’s been kind of a remarkable year for what we have accomplished since the tsunami,” Young said. "

To see that whole story go to



1 comment:

  1. Not sure exactly what just happened here. I published today's blog, about "Water Water, Everywhere. But when I hit publish, this only one from a year ago, popped into the line-up as being more recently published, even though I wrote it nearly a year ago and we are approaching the second anniversary of the tsunami now, and still dealing with an unprepared, but better, harbor.

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