I commend your civic minded attitude. Just don't forget that tsunamis often come in sets and it can be quite a while before they have all finished making landfall. So, be careful not to be caught by a second tsunami if we ever have a Big One off the coast here in SoCal.

I don't know how accurate the report was, but one news article said that there were two large tsunamis that hit the Sendai area--first one about 23 feet and the second one was about 30 feet tall! Some of the videos are quite unsettling to watch, with cars and even entire small buildings picked up and swept away by the tsunamis on live TV. I can only pray that there weren't people still inside.

Hey Pete,If I were you,I'd stay put on the Hill & Observe from above,also If we have "The Big One",Liquefaction is Going to be a Major Concern,Especially on The Hills of Baldwin Hills/Westchester/ Manhattan/Redondo/Palos Verdes.I would attempt to research the areas where,there are Oil Derricks/Rigs,As they are basically probes as well as Vents,& The possibility is there for Early Warning of Liquefaction Activity!If there is liquefaction activity below the Hills,Then in theory the hills can slide as their support base is/has shifted.Wave to me,I'm down there somewhere probably floating around on My Surfboard!:)

Arney & Rich

Appreciate the comments. That was one of the things I learned from the Japanese disaster today - that the tsunami can be a series of waves. The first wave is not necessarily the largest. That will be important to keep in mind. I was also watching the footage of the tsunami going through Iwanuma. Very hard to avoid a wall of water that's as huge as that - esp. when it is flowing across flat land. If you find any longer TV footage of that wave, please post a link.

Rich - apparently your knowledge of liquefaction is greater than mine. I thought it only operated on a local scale, for buildings built on sandy soils. You seem to be saying that it can affect whole geological regions. Hope you will explain more when you can.

And by the way - we've got three major oil refineries within about 6 miles of my home (El Segundo Chevron refinery, the Torrance refinery, and the big refinery near Signal Hill beside Long Beach). Based on the Japanese footage, it's a good bet that these refineries could be on fire after a quake like that.

other Pete

As far as first aid goes, I would think that you'd mostly encounter a lot of lacerations, bruises, abrasions, and fractures among survivors. That tsunami is going to pick up people and debris and just turn into a giant meat grinder, smashing everything together before finally receding. Maybe major blunt force trauma to the head, but that's not something you can do much about in the field.

It's possible you may encounter quite a few injured, so you should gird yourself for the possibility of doing some triage and having to decide whom to treat first. Not that I've ever had to do that, but that could be pretty tough to do. I've had a bit of triage training, but really, could I pass up a kid? That's a tough one.

+1 with what you said Arney.
I realized after watching those video's that the wave is not just made of water. It truly is a "meat grinder". That's a bad way to go. I suppose a rescue and recovery effort boils down to finding whoever is still floating in the muddy mess, figuring out how to drag them to shore, and starting basic first-aid. I guess I might need a long rope in my kit :-)

other Pete

I would suggest a training course before jumping into the truck. I've forgotten how many wilderness first aid courses my wife and I have had, and we're signed up for another one next month - 2-day training on a weekend. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we figure we'll be in a wilderness for the first days, maybe weeks, after a quake.

I haven't seen any rescue courses vis-a-vis tsunamis. Check with your fire department and see what they say about training. Our fire dept. is very active in teaching search and rescue and first aid for CERT volunteers.

The first thing they teach, by the way, is not to become a victim yourself. If you jump in the truck and head down to the beach, you may be greeted by a 3d or 4th surge if the tsunami hasn't finished yet. Sea rescue is a perilous undertaking even for the well-trained and qualified.

Another major Concern-Hypothermia!That water rushing in is from,The Deep Ocean,So It's gonna' be Frigid at Best! It's Still Winter Here,As well as Japan!

Based on what I've seen from the Japanese video's, i'm not sure anymore that it is even possible to rescue people from the incoming tsunami. I think Arney got it right. Once that wave picks up debris, it becomes a meat grinder. Probably the only people who can survive are those who can climb above the wave, or get inside something really solid (like a big rig).

One of my big takeaways from this incident in Japan is this ... don't expect any outside help during the first 24 hours of the disaster. It's probably not coming. Any help that will be rendered can only come from people inside the scene. The only way this can occur is through police/fire units in the neighborhood, and organized citizens groups. Japan is very fortunate to have a lot of capable people who seem to fall into the latter category. We have the CERT system in the USA - which is a step in the right direction - but I think we need some big improvements.

other Pete

So did anybody in Japan take advantage of their foreknowledge of this big one and get in a good place beforehand?

Philip : I noticed a couple of things from the video's in japan.

The first was that the Japanese were expecting a devastating earthquake, but they thought it would come from the south of their country. Apparently they have a serious risk from faults in the ocean to the south, and they have been banking on getting hit from that direction. But they were caught totally off guard by a major earthquake coming from the northeast. That's the great difficulty with natural disasters - it's the extreme unpredictability of the whole thing.

I did see one video where an entire town in the Sendai area got the whole thing right. They got the tsunami warning in time - with at least 10 minutes to spare. Local people went door-to-door and got everybody out of their houses. People all clustered up on the 3'rd floors of some strong buildings. Then the tidal wave came in and wrecked a lot of their town. But all the people in that town were safe. That was a "picture perfect" response.

I don't know why it is that some towns in Japan were caught completely off-guard. Maybe they were located further inland.

In principle we have a tsunami warning system here on the California coast. There are sirens and they are supposed to be connected to a warning center. I honestly could not tell you whether it will work in a short-notice situation (10 mins or less). We may find out the hard way. I'm not counting on the sirens here to go off ... the sensible policy is to get moving fast as soon as the quake stops.

The Japanese death toll has now gone above 10,000 people. That's a big jump from yesterday's figures.

other Pete