The Tsunami Threat Looming Over The East Coast
April 07, 2014 | Tom Olago
Share this article
The East Coast of the United States is under the threat of being buried under water following potential tsunamis that can drive massive walls of water, several hundred feet high, and at speeds of hundreds of miles an hour, onto the coastline. The projected impact would be catastrophic, with the potential to destroy major U.S. cities stretching from the tip of Florida all the way up to Maine.
Those to whom such a scenario seems impossible only need to remember that that is what people living along the Indian Ocean thought before the 2004 tsunami, and that is what people living in Japan thought before the 2011 tsunami. TheTruthWins.com in a recent report, examined the prospect of a massive wall of water several hundred feet high slamming into Florida at more than 100 miles an hour.
Almost the entire bottom half of Florida is just barely above sea level, so if a giant tsunami did hit Florida, there would be nothing to stop it from sweeping across the entire state, causing levels of devastation that would be absolutely unimaginable.
As TheTruthWins.com explains, South Florida has two big problems. The first is its remarkably flat topography. Half the area that surrounds Miami is less than five feet above sea level. With just three feet of sea-level rise, more than a third of southern Florida will vanish; at six feet, more than half will be gone; if the seas rise 12 feet, South Florida will be little more than an isolated archipelago surrounded by abandoned buildings and crumbling overpasses. Adding to the misery would be rising seas will coming in nearly as fast from the west too, through the Everglades.
Secondly, and worse still, South Florida sits above a vast and porous limestone plateau, meaning water moves around easily – it seeps into yards at high tide, bubbles up on golf courses, flows through underground caverns, corrodes building foundations from below, reportedly rendering conventional sea walls and barriers are ineffective.
The authorities quite predictably play down the threat. For instance, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is quoted as describing the tsunami threat as “highly unlikely” but “not impossible”. The department states that “Floridians may also travel to locations where tsunamis are more likely. It is vital to know (and instruct children) that if the ocean suddenly recedes from the shore do not stand and stare. It is necessary immediately to run uphill or away from the shore and go to the highest location possible which may mean up the stairs of a substantial building."
The problem with this advice is that there is no “high ground” until you get to north Florida, and the authorities have not provided the “substantial buildings” that they are asking people to run into to save their lives. Therefore quite a long run and fast sprint to North Florida may be required for that to happen, what with a 100-foot, 100 mile-an-hour tsunami potentially bearing down on you and your family. In short, there will be no place to run and nowhere to hide.
According to scientists, a mega-tsunami can race across the open ocean at up to 500 miles an hour, and upon reaching shore can produce waves that hundreds of feet high. LiveScience.com quoted U.S. Geological Survey researcher Uri Ten Brink saying that “… as Hurricane Sandy showed, the region is completely unprepared for a major influx of water”. At the 2012 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Charlotte, North Carolina, Ten Brink also outlined several other possible sources of tsunamis, including earthquakes and the lesser likelihood of collapsing volcanoes. According to their research, the most likely source for an East Coast tsunami would be an underwater avalanche along the continental slope.
A report from CBS News examines the earthquake causal effect: Meteorologist Bart Hagemeyer from the National Weather Service says an earthquake in the Caribbean region is likely to project wave energy more to the north and less toward Florida. But the direction can vary and much of the outcome depends on the amount of energy released by the earthquake. That would have the potential of a not just a garden-variety of tsunami, but a “mega-tsunami,” according to Hagemeyer. Such a “mega-tsunami” could produce a wall of water approximately 164 feet high.
Yet perhaps the greatest Tsunami threat faced would be from space, into the earth’s atmosphere: according to the University of California at Santa Cruz website, if a massive asteroid were to crash into the Atlantic Ocean it could produce a giant tsunami with a wall of water as high as 400 feet that would slam into the east coast of the United States, with catastrophic impact on major U.S. cities stretching from the tip of Florida all the way up to Maine , including major cities such as Portland(Maine), Boston (Massachusetts), New Haven (Connecticut) and many more metropolitan cities in between.
The magnitude of the threat is better understood when it is considered that over one third of the country (more than 100 million people) live along the East Coast. Evacuation would be virtually impossible for most due to only hours notice, probable doubt, and the subsequent immediate gridlock that would follow.
Neither is the tsunami-producing asteroid threat as remote as many scientists would prefer us to believe. Based on records so far, more than 10,000 major near earth objects have been discovered, and about 10 percent of them are one kilometer or larger in size. Many more out there that are still undiscovered and scientists are discovering new ones all the time, sometimes only spotting them after they have passed our planet.
And for those not living along the East Coast, it’s worth noting that it’s not just the East Coast that is under the tsunami threat: The state of California, located on the West coast of the U.S, is another high-risk tsunami zone, based on its earthquake potential. LiveScience.com reported that “an earthquake fault just off Southern California could generate a major quake and a $42 billion tsunami that would strike so fast that many coastal residents would not have time to escape. Add to that the unprecedented destruction from the earthquake's shaking, and the situation would be reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina.”
Northern California has cause for concern too: “Geologists know it's just a matter of time before another 9.0 or larger earthquake strikes somewhere between Northern California and Canada. The shaking would be locally catastrophic, but the biggest threat is the tsunami that would ensue from a fault line that's seismically identical to the one that caused the deadly 2004 tsunami in Indonesia.”
Another disturbing angle is the ripple effect of natural disasters occurring in other geographical areas. Just last week the state of Hawaii which is the most southern state in the U.S, was placed on a Tsunami alert following the earthquake in Chile, South America.
All in all, indications abound that there is still very little effective pro-active protection available from tsunami threats. Despite all the lessons that previous tsunamis have provided over time, so far not enough can be done to protect life and property in future – and whatever has been done from what could be done, is still highly inadequate.
Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/April07/072.html#5iLpflB3hxhfGzkj.99
April 07, 2014 | Tom Olago
Share this article
The East Coast of the United States is under the threat of being buried under water following potential tsunamis that can drive massive walls of water, several hundred feet high, and at speeds of hundreds of miles an hour, onto the coastline. The projected impact would be catastrophic, with the potential to destroy major U.S. cities stretching from the tip of Florida all the way up to Maine.
Those to whom such a scenario seems impossible only need to remember that that is what people living along the Indian Ocean thought before the 2004 tsunami, and that is what people living in Japan thought before the 2011 tsunami. TheTruthWins.com in a recent report, examined the prospect of a massive wall of water several hundred feet high slamming into Florida at more than 100 miles an hour.
Almost the entire bottom half of Florida is just barely above sea level, so if a giant tsunami did hit Florida, there would be nothing to stop it from sweeping across the entire state, causing levels of devastation that would be absolutely unimaginable.
As TheTruthWins.com explains, South Florida has two big problems. The first is its remarkably flat topography. Half the area that surrounds Miami is less than five feet above sea level. With just three feet of sea-level rise, more than a third of southern Florida will vanish; at six feet, more than half will be gone; if the seas rise 12 feet, South Florida will be little more than an isolated archipelago surrounded by abandoned buildings and crumbling overpasses. Adding to the misery would be rising seas will coming in nearly as fast from the west too, through the Everglades.
Secondly, and worse still, South Florida sits above a vast and porous limestone plateau, meaning water moves around easily – it seeps into yards at high tide, bubbles up on golf courses, flows through underground caverns, corrodes building foundations from below, reportedly rendering conventional sea walls and barriers are ineffective.
The authorities quite predictably play down the threat. For instance, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is quoted as describing the tsunami threat as “highly unlikely” but “not impossible”. The department states that “Floridians may also travel to locations where tsunamis are more likely. It is vital to know (and instruct children) that if the ocean suddenly recedes from the shore do not stand and stare. It is necessary immediately to run uphill or away from the shore and go to the highest location possible which may mean up the stairs of a substantial building."
The problem with this advice is that there is no “high ground” until you get to north Florida, and the authorities have not provided the “substantial buildings” that they are asking people to run into to save their lives. Therefore quite a long run and fast sprint to North Florida may be required for that to happen, what with a 100-foot, 100 mile-an-hour tsunami potentially bearing down on you and your family. In short, there will be no place to run and nowhere to hide.
According to scientists, a mega-tsunami can race across the open ocean at up to 500 miles an hour, and upon reaching shore can produce waves that hundreds of feet high. LiveScience.com quoted U.S. Geological Survey researcher Uri Ten Brink saying that “… as Hurricane Sandy showed, the region is completely unprepared for a major influx of water”. At the 2012 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Charlotte, North Carolina, Ten Brink also outlined several other possible sources of tsunamis, including earthquakes and the lesser likelihood of collapsing volcanoes. According to their research, the most likely source for an East Coast tsunami would be an underwater avalanche along the continental slope.
A report from CBS News examines the earthquake causal effect: Meteorologist Bart Hagemeyer from the National Weather Service says an earthquake in the Caribbean region is likely to project wave energy more to the north and less toward Florida. But the direction can vary and much of the outcome depends on the amount of energy released by the earthquake. That would have the potential of a not just a garden-variety of tsunami, but a “mega-tsunami,” according to Hagemeyer. Such a “mega-tsunami” could produce a wall of water approximately 164 feet high.
Yet perhaps the greatest Tsunami threat faced would be from space, into the earth’s atmosphere: according to the University of California at Santa Cruz website, if a massive asteroid were to crash into the Atlantic Ocean it could produce a giant tsunami with a wall of water as high as 400 feet that would slam into the east coast of the United States, with catastrophic impact on major U.S. cities stretching from the tip of Florida all the way up to Maine , including major cities such as Portland(Maine), Boston (Massachusetts), New Haven (Connecticut) and many more metropolitan cities in between.
The magnitude of the threat is better understood when it is considered that over one third of the country (more than 100 million people) live along the East Coast. Evacuation would be virtually impossible for most due to only hours notice, probable doubt, and the subsequent immediate gridlock that would follow.
Neither is the tsunami-producing asteroid threat as remote as many scientists would prefer us to believe. Based on records so far, more than 10,000 major near earth objects have been discovered, and about 10 percent of them are one kilometer or larger in size. Many more out there that are still undiscovered and scientists are discovering new ones all the time, sometimes only spotting them after they have passed our planet.
And for those not living along the East Coast, it’s worth noting that it’s not just the East Coast that is under the tsunami threat: The state of California, located on the West coast of the U.S, is another high-risk tsunami zone, based on its earthquake potential. LiveScience.com reported that “an earthquake fault just off Southern California could generate a major quake and a $42 billion tsunami that would strike so fast that many coastal residents would not have time to escape. Add to that the unprecedented destruction from the earthquake's shaking, and the situation would be reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina.”
Northern California has cause for concern too: “Geologists know it's just a matter of time before another 9.0 or larger earthquake strikes somewhere between Northern California and Canada. The shaking would be locally catastrophic, but the biggest threat is the tsunami that would ensue from a fault line that's seismically identical to the one that caused the deadly 2004 tsunami in Indonesia.”
Another disturbing angle is the ripple effect of natural disasters occurring in other geographical areas. Just last week the state of Hawaii which is the most southern state in the U.S, was placed on a Tsunami alert following the earthquake in Chile, South America.
All in all, indications abound that there is still very little effective pro-active protection available from tsunami threats. Despite all the lessons that previous tsunamis have provided over time, so far not enough can be done to protect life and property in future – and whatever has been done from what could be done, is still highly inadequate.
Read more at http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2014/April07/072.html#5iLpflB3hxhfGzkj.99
No comments:
Post a Comment