T&T: Glad I missed the Ferry

[Candy Chapman and Gary Bell]

From: "GARY RITZMAN:

Now we have visual proof that everything Marin Faure has been saying about the
horrors of boating here in the Pacific Northwest. The following includes some
shots of a ferry ride across Puget Sound on Washington State Ferries!




Yeah, but the Washington State Ferries like the MV Kittitas shown there 
operate in the relatively protected waters of the Sound.  How's about 
the Alaska State and the BC Ferries, or the good old Black Ball ferries 
out of Port Angeles,  which operate in much more 'interesting' waters?  
Actually the ferry photos you have there are show the early testing 
stages of a brand new commuter service, available to the first three 
cars in each row.  Not shown in the photos are the spot-free rinse nor 
the hot wax cycle.  I can't figure out how they got the whole boat to 
jump around like that for the agitation cycle. 

And don't forget some even bigger risks hereabouts.  From my mooring NW 
of Portland Mt. St. Helens dominates my view, at a little under forty 
miles distant (and upwind much of the year) -- but I can easilly see 
three more active volcanoes from the marina (between rain squals of 
course).  Due to an intervening hill I can't quite see Mt. Tabor, at 
about ten miles, which is distinguished as the only active volcanoe 
actually inside the city limits of a city.

On a considerably more serious note, the Admiral and I caught a 
fascinating tsunami presentation by the Oregon State University College 
of Engineering's Wave Research Facility, the largest wave laboratory in 
the nation, and when they finish the upgrade on their wavemaker, it will 
be the largest and best in the world.   The pool is much the size of a 
football field and for this discussion they had a model of a popular 
beach resort town Seaside Oregon set up.  The scientific presentations 
touched on tsunami generation, propagation, interactions with the coast, 
and of course how they interact with towns and cities, with special 
attention given to warning systems and survival models.  Ya see, we have 
the Pacific Subduction Zone a couple of hundred miles offshore where the 
North American continental tectonic plate is continuously sliding up 
over and submerging (subducting) the edge of the Pacific Plate, driving 
North Pacific Plate material down to where it melts and feeds our active 
volcanoes.  The really interesting bit is that the specific portion of 
that subduction zone off the Oregon coast has a long history of 
producing monster earthquakes (Richter 9.0) about every three hundred 
years (we have good to excellent scientific and even historical records 
of the last six of them).  The last one was in the year 1700, and the 
tsunami from it did massive damage as far away as Japan.  After the 
power point shows and the lectures they fired up the wave tank.  First, 
they showed the wave from a Richter 9.0 event.  This wave would only be 
60 centimeters high in the open ocean, but watching it pile up on the 
foreshore and crest on the model town was amazing.  Solid water over all 
the single story buildings.  Then, they said, what if there was a ten 
kilometer meteorite strike?  That would produce (among numerouls other 
killer effects) a ten meter open water tsunami wave.  THAT was 
unbelievable!  When it broke on our Seaside model there was maybe a 
third of the solid water wave over the top of our seven story beachfront 
condo! 

So, anybody figurin' on a nice peaceful retirement out here should 
probably reconsider.  It sure would take some of the pleasure out of 
your day to always be dragging around with you a fireman's long coat and 
Scott airpack, as well as a Class I pfd with a safety tether and a good 
anchor.  And of course that would apply all year 'round, since there 
isn't a season for such things. like y'all have for them hurricanes.  
BTW, the National Weather Guessers Service reported a tornado touched 
down near Hubbard Oregon last week, and took out "three green houses".  
Thank God I don't have a green house!