An undersea volcano that erupted Saturday in the Pacific Ocean near Tonga prompted tsunami advisories and evacuations along the U.S. West Coast, where beaches closed and surges of water flooded harbors and low-lying coastal areas.
The National Weather Service said the biggest tsunami threat to the West Coast in more than a decade could produce up to a couple feet of flooding at beaches and harbor areas in San Francisco, Berkeley, Santa Cruz and other coastal areas during morning hours as the waves arrived with the rising tide and throughout the day.
A tsunami advisory is the second-most severe alert, short of a warning to seek higher ground and avoid dangerous dangerous flooding. A tsunami advisory urges people to stay out of the water and away from beaches and waterways. Officials from around the region urged residents not to go near beaches, harbors or piers, while in Berkeley the fire department issued an evacuation order to the city’s Marina neighborhood.
In Santa Cruz, where the city harbor suffered more than $20 million in damage from a March 2011 tsunami following an earthquake in Japan, waves Saturday flooded the harbor parking lot with about 2 to 3 feet of water, dislodged a dredge and washed waste bins into the channel.
“The tide was rising incredibly rapidly, we could see the surge coming in,” said Karl Isacson, a Santa Cruz resident who saw the flooding and also witnessed the damage in 2011, which he said was much worse. “This is mild compared to that. If that was an 8, this was a 2.”
The tsunami waves are expected to “arrive in pulses” throughout the day, the National Weather Service tweeted. The conditions were triggered by a volcanic eruption at Tongatapu, the largest island in Tonga, which saw its own large tsunami waves early Saturday.
Cynthia Palmer, a National Weather Service meteorologist, compared the peak wave in Monterey to a king tide, saying it inundated most of the beach when it struck. She warned that waves later in the day could be even larger and advised people to avoid the beaches.
“It’s not a one-and-done — this is an all-day type of event,” Palmer said in an interview. “We do expect these conditions to last for the better part of the day.”
The weather service’s announcement early Saturday prompted the San Francisco Department of Emergency to order residents to “self-evacuate” or call 911 if they were near the coast.
“Stay away from San Francisco beaches, harbor and marina docks, and piers until the city issues an official notice that it is safe to return,” the department said in an alert.
The Berkeley Fire Department, meanwhile, ordered the mandatory evacuation of residents living at or near the city’s Marina neighborhood due to similar flooding risks.
Palmer said she and other meteorologists are looking to Hawaii and Alaska — which are marginally closer to Tongatapu — in order to gauge peak wavelengths in the Bay Area.
Jason Hoppin, a spokesman for Santa Cruz County, was down at Rio Del Mar beach on Saturday morning, observing the tidal run-up from afar. He said there were still people walking their dogs about 100 feet from the water, and that state parks officials were on their way to the beach with bullhorns to ward them away from the area.
“I don’t think they know what’s going on,” Hoppin said in an interview of the beachgoers who remained. “They’re looking down and wondering why the sand is wet.”
The tsunami threat prompted organizers of a surfing contest at Santa Cruz’s legendary Steamer Lane near Lighthouse Point to cancel.
Andrea Swayne, contest director for the surf competition on Steamer Lane. Have 112 surfers registered, competition was supposed to start at 7:30 and run today and tomorrow. They’re waiting for a call from call from city officials
“We’re on hold basically because of the swell until further notice,” said Andrea Swayne, director for the surf competition, for which 112 surfers are registered that was supposed to start at 7:30 and run through Sunday. She said the waves “look great, but out of an abundance of caution, we’re holding off. As soon as we get the go-ahead, we plan to proceed. We’re ready to go, just waiting for the green light.”
Blake Montgomery, a lifeguard at Steamer Lane for the competition, said he’s never seen surges like these before.
“It’s definitely unsafe,” Montgomery said.
Shane Skelton of Santa Cruz saw two major surges water at 8:10 and 8:45 a.m., with the second pushing water from surf line to edge of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
“It looked like a king tide,” Skelton said, referring to the extreme high tides often seen in winter. “We saw a couple of people walking on the beach and yelled ‘hey get off,’ because the water was coming up.”
But Skelton wasn’t worried about his own safety as he watched from the cliffs.
“Most of Santa Cruz is up on a cliff so we don’t have too much to worry about, but it is fun to watch,” Skelton said.
Bay Area weather officials have long warned that tsunamis are a common occurrence in the region, and that bad ones, while rare, could still strike. They have advised that residents who live near the coast stay up to date on alerts and tsunami advisories like the one issued Saturday.
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