That was a Southern Cal perspective from the LA Times. For a Northern Cal perspective of the same report, you can read this article.

We would have about an hour less warning from an Alaska quake than Southern California. Much of the interior land areas of the San Francisco Bay are landfill, and not very high, so are quite vulnerable. The Port of Oakland (a major West coast port) and the Oakland Airport would both be knocked out for a while, it seems.

I recently saw a video from the Japan tsunami that I had not seen before. I will post a link to it after I go home and find the link again. It's another jaw dropping example of the deceptively sneaky way that a tsunami can start small and grow and grow to wreak total havoc.

A tsunami doesn't have to be this gigantic wave that breaks at the beach and crashes into shore. There's this image from the Indonesian tsunami that we've all seen many times where a tsunami smashes into a seawall and sends spray high into the air. But more often, it's like someone leaving the faucet in the bathtub running and the water level just keeps rising and rising until all your floating bath toys spill over the side and crash to the floor--and the water keeps on coming.