Category: Santa Cruz County

Preliminary damage estimates

These are very preliminary…and may already be out of date:
Details:
–  Crescent City Harbor and 35 boats destroyed; estimates of $20-30M (preliminary) in damages.
–  One person swept out to sea; casualty at mouth of Klamath River.
–  Noyo Harbor (Fort Bragg): 400 ft pier and 2 boats damaged
–  Berkeley Marina – boats and docks damaged; $50k
–  Santa Cruz Harbor: 20 boats sunk, 100 damaged; preliminary $17M
–  Morro Bay: damage to boats and docks 
–  Ventura Harbor: damage to several boats and a dock (8-10 hours after first wave arrival)
–  Redondo Beach Harbor:  large boat sunk
–  Catalina:  LA Times “…swells toppled about 10 boats and loosened pier moorings..”

Andy Ritchie (USGS) observations from Santa Cruz Harbor

Some docks and boats were torn off well before the high amplitude short period waves came through at around 11:13 & 11:18. On the second strong ebb a sinking vessel struck the O’Neill catamaran’s port pontoon. From what I understand, it had been tied up at the end of a dock section, and was torn loose and capsized. Probably on the first wave. 

By the third wave, there were three loose boats and several dock sections going back and forth in the harbor, and also before the high-amplitude waves, a portion of the rowing boat dock was ripped free and a sailboat was ripped loose and wedged under the bridge from the inland side until the subsequent surge (I was on the oceanward side of the Murray St. Bridge).
Clearly those waves did some damage, but there was plenty of energy (and damage) before they came through.

I have minimal video/pictures, since I was taking measurements the entire time, but there were several hundred people and a couple helicopters that got good film of the whole shebang, so I imagine that you can get a clear picture of when and where the damage occurred if somebody’s willing to compile all of that. Probably would be useful to talk to the chopper folks. I think at least one of them got the whole thing.
Last night I dreamed I was helping to build a tsunami gate for Santa Cruz harbor 🙂

Report from Oroville Magoon re. Santa Cruz

Don Treadwell and I visited the Santa Cruz, CA, yacht harbor at 11:50 AM and the harbor upper basin was still surging, we assume from the tsunami.
Damage seemed to be concreted in the western portion of the eastern harbor basin and what we observed was severe damage to one set on boat slips which had apparently been torn from their respective support pilings and boats that hat been moored on these floats were set loose damaged. The harbor master was unavailable, but we spoke with a Mr. Tom Mc Claren (831 818 0650) who stated that seven boats were lost.
The Santa Cruz paper reported that damage at Santa Cruz amounted to $17 million..

Proclaimed Emergencies

The list of proclaimed emergencies can help provide an indication of where some of the more serious damage and emergence response activities may have occurred since these are initiated by local officials as a request for additional (state/federal) assistance.

Declarations/Proclamations:
* Del Norte County proclaimed a Local Emergency on 3/11/11
* Humboldt County proclaimed a Local Emergency on 3/11/11.
* Santa Cruz County proclaimed a Local Emergency on 3/11/11.
* San Mateo County proclaimed a Local Emergency on 3/11/11.
* City of Santa Cruz proclaimed a Local Emergency on 03/11/11.
* City of Half Moon Bay proclaimed a Local Emergency on 3/11/11.
* City of Pacifica proclaimed a Local Emergency on 3/11/11.
* The Governor proclaimed a State of Emergency in the counties of Del Norte, San Mateo, Humboldt and Santa Cruz to support the State’s response.