Much like with Katrina, there were early hopes that the damage would not be too bad given the thousands of miles the waves had to travel. But those hopes appear to have been dashed as wave after wave sweeps in.

As I was typing this update the local news interviewed a woman who had come down to check on her boat only to find that it had been destroyed. She broke down into sobs as she tried to relate her story.

Obviously damaged boats and docks do not match with the hundreds or perhaps thousands of dead in Japan and the rest of the Pacific, but it just goes to show how far ranging this quake is.