I just ran across this and it seemed appropriate to add this to the mix. I don't have a link for the original report of this, but over at the Reuters blog, this was shocking to me:

Is there any structure in the world designed with 75 foot tsunamis in mind? Now, I don't know if it was 75 ft at Fukushima Daiichi, but it's an indication of how incredibly beyond anyone's expectations this event was.

Edit: Before anyone is incredulous about that 76 foot figure, I'm pretty sure that these guys are not saying that the tsunami was 76 feet high when it first came onshore like in some Hollywood movie. I'm guessing that what they're saying is due to the moutainous topography and valleys and just the sheer power of the disruption that spawned it, the water was squeezed that high above sea level. That's probably also why it pushed 6 miles inland in some places. In any case, the tsunami was shockingly large even for scientists who study them.