We just heard a special report on television (a National Weather Service bulletin, complete with a grave sounding buzz) saying that there is a tusnami warning for San Diego County due to a 7.4 earthquake off the San Diego coast.
Note: we didn’t feel any quake here, at our condo. And we can just imagine the surfers at Pacific Beach getting into their wet suits right now…
UPDATE: Here’s a news story which notes that the quake actually struck off the Northern CA coast:
EUREKA, Calif. — A major earthquake struck Tuesday night about 80 miles off the coast of northern California.
A regional tsunami warning for the U.S. West Coast was issued Tuesday after the earthquake struck.
The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center issued the regional tsunami warning after the quake struck off the coastal community of Crescent City, Calif., according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
“There is a possibility that there could be a tsunami on the West Coast of the United States,” said Stuart Weinstein, a geologist at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
The center said that based on all data there was no tsunami threat to Hawaii.
The LA Times carries this early wire story detail:
Residents were being evacuated from low-lying areas of Crescent City, KCBS radio reported.
Officials said a tsunami warning issued from the California-Mexico border north to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, had been canceled.
Witnesses felt buildings shaking along the California coast but there were no immediate reports of damage.
UPDATE III: The tsunami warning and watch have been formally CANCELLED. (Via Wizbang)
UPDATE II: Evacuation preps immediately began in northern San Diego County, reports the North County Times:
At Fletcher Cove, Solana Beach’s main beach, lifeguards asked about a dozen people to leave the sand as a precaution about 9 p.m., said lifeguard Capt. Craig Miller.
The beachgoers were watching waves that glowed bright green from a red tide, he said.
Tall ocean bluffs line Solana Beach’s shoreline. Miller said he had prepared to call the homeowners’ associations of condominium complexes on the bluff top as a precaution, but did not because the Coast Guard had cancelled the warning……
Within minutes of the warning, phones began ringing at Del Mar Lifeguard Headquarters, Chief Patrick Vergne said.
The calls came mostly from residents along the wide swath of low-lying beachfront north of 17th Street to the San Dieguito River, he said. Vergne said he responded to nearly 40 calls within a half-hour.
Lifeguards used the Internet to monitor wave heights at various distances offshore.
“We told residents at this point, we didn’t see any sign of a tsunami hitting and for them to call us back every five minutes,” Vergne said.
In Oceanside, officials began gathering to discuss whether an emergency activation would occur in the city, but it never came to that, said Oceanside fire Battalion Chief Pete Lawrence.
The city dispatchers configured its new “reverse 911” system to be ready to dial all residents west of Pacific Street and in the Oceanside Harbor area with information should the need arise, he said.
Oceanside Harbor Police Chief Don Hadley said the city was ready, checking all emergency equipment and coordinating with fire and lifeguards. The Harbor Police called in extra officers, Hadley said.
One officer was in a boat in the water advising boaters of the situation and two other officers were in patrol cars letting people know about the situation, but no evacuations were necessary, he said.
Lifeguards were also called in and were on standby in case they needed to start clearing the beaches, lifeguard supervisor Ray Duncan said.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.