Could it happen here?
With the all the devastation around the Indian Ocean
the question immediately arises: could a tsunami strike here in the States, too?
The answer is yes — bigtime. Should the unstable La Palma volcano in the Canaries erupt again — as it does about once every 20 years — half of the volcano might fall into the Atlantic, creating an enormous wave that would make the Boxing Day tsunami look like a ripple by comparison.
And lest you relax, the Pacific coast is hardly safe either. Seattle is protected from open-ocean tsunami by the Olympics, but an event on the Seattle fault which runs through the sound could even cause giant waves in Lake Washington, as happened 1000 years ago.
Enjoy your breakfast.
Personally, as with other massive cataclysmic events like supervolcanoes and asteroid strikes, I don’t really see the point in worrying. The chances of such an event occurring in our lifetimes is pretty small, and besides, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it even if it is about to happen soon. So what’s the point in worrying?
