In response to the 9.0 earthquake that struck off the northern Japanese coast last Thursday and the ensuing tsunami of undetermined force that was headed for the West Coast, officials in Los Angeles braced for a worst-case scenario. At 3 a.m. Friday, March 11, fire, police and sheriff department authorities met to map a course of action. According to Fire Station 69 Captain Al Gonzalez in Pacific Palisades, they were to suggest to residents living in low-lying areas such as Santa Monica Canyon that they evacuate. ‘The decision was made not to make it mandatory,’ Gonzalez said, as he and his firefighters observed the Palisades Bowl from the Asilomar bluffs (north of Temescal) around 8:30 a.m. ‘I don’t expect much, but we don’t know.’ The uncertainty was evident among the more than 50 people viewing the ocean from that vista point. ‘I would be happy to go home after this,’ said Eliza Krause, a Palisades Bowl resident who had decided to evacuate. ‘It was a rude awakening this morning. I was asleep.’ Another Bowl resident, Karen Galloway, said that when she moved into the mobile home park, she received a booklet from L.A. County warning that she lived in an earthquake zone, a slide area and a tsunami zone. ‘The tsunami warning was the scariest,’ she said. As residents milled on the bluff, a pod of dolphins swam lazily past the jetty at Temescal Canyon and PCH. ‘Do they evacuate the dolphins?’ a resident asked. Coast Guard and LAPD helicopters traversed the coastline. After about an hour of watching waves roll in, without seeing any evidence of a tsunami, residents returned home. Meanwhile, up on the Via de las Olas bluffs above Temescal and PCH, more than 100 spectators peered across Santa Monica Bay towards Malibu, many of them aware of the e-mail alert that went out via Community Council chair Janet Turner at 7:35 a.m, warning that a tsunami (potentially 3 to 5 feet high) was ‘expected to hit Pacific Palisades at 8:39 a.m. However, Tsunami waves are unpredictable.’   Down on the beach, lifeguards said that since beaches weren’t closed they couldn’t order people away from the water, but they were suggesting that they move back. ‘I was hoping to get as close as I could to watch the waves,’ said Palisadian Lily Sakkis, who obeyed the lifeguards, moving from the water’s edge and back to the bike path.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
