Siskiyoumom
Veteran Member
Siskiyou Islands
Part One: The Wave and Its Aftermath
by Siskiyoumom
Chapter One:
Thinking back, when did I become the woman I am today? When did I find the strength to think of how I could survive the unthinkable? Which adults blessed me with the art of questioning what is put before me in school, at church, on TV? Why have I come to this place and time and why am I here and others are lost?
The wave crashing over the coastal mountain range of California arrived on May 15th. I was in the middle of teaching PE; rather I was letting my Junior High students play basketball in the gym. It was their most favorite activity of the school day. The weather had turned warm, and after four months of unseasonable snow fall the kids decided that yes indeed they would behave enough to earn PAT time (preferred activity time) to have an extra long PE period.
Since February, we in the great state of California had been experiencing the worst weather in 500 years. Everyone expected that once the snow and ice finally melted we’d be flooded. But, we did not expect to be flooded by the mega tsunami coming up the Klamath River corridor from the Pacific Ocean. Seems that there was a massive subduction zone quake of magnitude 10.4 on the intersection of the North American, Juan de Fuca, Pacific and Gorda plates where they with the Mednocino fracture zone converging 12.8 nautical miles from the small coastal town of Petrolia.
Source Note: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/07/24/BAG6GK49HH1.DTL&o=0&type=science, E-mail David Perlman at dperlman@sfchronicle.com.
www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/01/20_marshes.shtml
woodshole.er.usgs.gov/operations/obs/rmobs_pub/html/mendocino.html
www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/plate-tectonics.html
This quake put the Indonesian quake to shame as far as loss of property. Due to the smaller north coast population the direct loss of life was less than 7,500 souls.
The ocean receded twelve miles west and then sent 350 foot tall wall of foaming water cascading over the coastal communities of Ferndale, Petrolia, Eureka, Loleta, Scotia, Manila, Arcata, Mckinleyville, and Trinidad in Humboldt county. Havoc reached 400 miles north and 400 miles south along the Pacific coastline.
Folks were a bit surprised that the dreaded San Andreas Fault was not the culprit, but the Little Salmon fault. The waves crested over the lowest mountains and coursed up the as far inland as 20 miles. Roaring up the Eel, Klamath, Trinity, Mad, Elk, and Smith rivers and their tributaries. The back wash coming down the summits at Lord Ellis and Barry Summits began the back wash of debris filled with timber, soil, gravel, boulders, homes, animals and vehicles with bodies bobbing along.
http://ceres.ca.gov/planning/counties/Humboldt/spatial.html
The now decommissioned nuclear power plant at Little River consisted of just the spent fuel pool.
The dry cask storage units which were waiting to be filled with decaying rods simply vanished with the outgoing waves. The pool had been rumored to be leaking for over 50 years. And now the radiation was spread miles inland and out to sea as the super heated fuel erupted when the cooling waters leaked out with the second wave rushing to the sea. Then the third massive wave washed the broken rods back inland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Bay_Nuclear_Generating_Station
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recent/index.html
The first major building to be wiped out was the county courthouse. And the pink palace (the county jail). In the basement the county Emergency Operations Center and Homeland Security Office was flooded before even one distress call could be received or go out.
All of us were aware that a quake had occurred. The small town I was teaching in is only 39 miles from the coast as the crow flies (75 miles by highway and county roads). Only a few lights fell in the gym as we were all knocked on behinds. The school secretary implemented our Emergency Plan and checked in on us. She said, “Just stay in the gym, school is out soon and the kids deserve their PE time. I’ll call the DO (district office) and Forest Service to get a report on what happened. Don’t sweat it, we still have school.” With a confident smile she walked out of the building. Seconds later, at 2:50 PM the roar of the water cold be heard.
I gathered the students together and told them to follow me to the north east corner of the gym. I said that it sounded like water was coming towards us and a flash flood might be happening. One of the kids said his Dad had a river raft on a trailer just across the field and that he knew it could hold 12 people. The school was located in the center of town, snuggled into a beautiful narrow river valley surrounded by 2nd growth Douglas fir and Pinion Pines. Next to the field was the Indian Housing Subdivision.
Within seconds the roaring was louder and a constant flow of water was entering the gym, quickly rising to about two feet deep. My class had 22 students. I quickly numbered the shortest 11 off and sent them scurrying out the back door of the gym and across the field towards the lot where the raft was. The boy with raft was Johnny. My class was a mix of 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. Being a tiny rural school meant multiple grade classes. The remaining 10 students were my taller, stockier stronger students. Having been raised on the reservation they were tough and in many ways much more mountain wise than I could ever hope to be.
The seconds it took for the raft group to cross the field, climbe the fence and disappear on the other side was a joy to watch. I tried to think quickly on if it were better to stay inside or fight the quickly rising waters. By now the water as up to our necks and the current was trying to pull us out of the gym. We saw much debris in the water and it was dark and very foamy. In seconds the kids were freaking out and crying and screaming.
I had to shout above the roar “Shut up and listen. If you want to die, go out the door. You want to live, then listen to me. Follow my orders and do not give me any crap!” For once this year they actually shut up and listened to me. What a shock!
The two rectangular tables used for holding the score board equipment were floating at this point. I directed the kids to grab on to them. More debris started popping up in the water, washed in by the current of the water. At one table the biggest three boys were on one side starting to capsize it. I swam over and told them to space themselves evenly out, one to a side. The kids had gotten very quiet, except for a few who were crying silent tears.
Josh, one of my big 6th graders said, “Gosh, I have never heard you swear before Mrs. Carlson.” As the water rose in the gym it got pretty dark. My mind was spinning, the water was icy cold, and the kids started to complain about the cold. I asked them “Who saw Titanic?” Josh answered, “Man, are you trying to freak us out more?” I laughed and said “No, but did you know one way to get warm for a few seconds is to pee in the water?” The girls went “Oh, gross!!” Tommy, my class clown, said “Hey it works!!”
As we rose higher and higher towards the gym ceiling I told the kids, “The building is strong, if it hasn’t collapsed yet, it probably won’t, we will float till the water starts to go down we’ll float down and be ok.”
The roar of the water became louder and louder and I thought my idea was pretty lame. I was cold, in shock, and as scared as the kids.
As the water pushed us closer to the ceiling I realized we were 16 feet in the air, which meant we were actually 23 feet above river level. I thought that my BOB in my classroom and in my rig were probably washed either up or down river by now.
As the minutes passed more and more debris kept popping up. Sadly, it included bodies of town folk. The boys and girls started freaking out, especially if they knew the person swirling by. I told them to hang on tight to the tables and to close their eyes or turn their heads.
The water got colder and colder. The gym got darker and darker. I had thought the water would go down quickly. It did not. I had no idea that upriver the Iron Gate Dam had collapsed when fault lines near Yreka broke loose. Sending even more water to our small town.
http://www.friendsoftheriver.org/Publications/RiversReborn/klamath.html
The kids got quiet for awhile. Then they started asking, “Why did this happen?” I could only say that the s**t had hit the fan and that the quake we felt must of caused a tidal wave that reached us. Every once in a while a kid or I would cry out when we were bumped in the dark by a human corpse or the body of a dead animal. The darkness was totally freaking me out.
The water did not go down! I thought we were just going to wear out like the passengers of the Titanic and drop off the tables and drown. Then I thought, hey girl, pray, think, don’t give up. One of my students said, “Hey Mrs. C. please think of something for us to do. I need to get home soon and check in on my Gram and baby brother. I gotta get outta here!”
I looked at my watched and realized it was not working. I asked, “Anyone know what time it is?” Josh said, “Tool time” with a smirk. Then he said, “It is 11:11 PM. Dang, let’s get outta here.”
I told the students. “We are going to push the tables to the walls where the doors are. We will dive down and out in pairs. Remember where the big grandma trees are in the school yard? First swim there and wait for all of us to regroup. After we regroup, we’ll decide where to swim to next, OK.”
My biggest pain in the butt students, two 8th grade girls started to back talk me and moan about the plan. I told them, “Fine, I am no longer your teacher. You want to stay in here with dead bodies all night and drown, then that is your choice. I am getting out of here now.” I started pushing the table I was hanging onto with the two smallest of my students, William a 6th grader and Jessie a 7th grader. William said in a soft voice, “Mrs. C my Mom trusts you and so do I please help me get home.” I patted his shoulder and off we went. As we reached the wall I told the two to take a depth breath and swim down and out and try to grab onto the light fixture at the roof line of the gym and to wait for me. I’d join them when I geo the rest of the kids out.
After watching all the students dive down and out I followed them. I took a deep breath, dove down, clawed my way out of the door and popped up outside.
It was night and the stars were bright. The entire town was covered in water. It was dark and the sliver of moon reflected off the snow covered firs in the school yard. The kids had already swum over to the tall fir trees and I joined them. The current was so strong I almost missed grabbing onto a branch. I held on with all my strength. I was so cold.
The kids were shivering in the dark. I thought of hypothermia and said out loud, “It is a fine fix you got us into this time Ollie”. William replied, “Mrs. C I gotta an idea….”
Part One: The Wave and Its Aftermath
by Siskiyoumom
Chapter One:
Thinking back, when did I become the woman I am today? When did I find the strength to think of how I could survive the unthinkable? Which adults blessed me with the art of questioning what is put before me in school, at church, on TV? Why have I come to this place and time and why am I here and others are lost?
The wave crashing over the coastal mountain range of California arrived on May 15th. I was in the middle of teaching PE; rather I was letting my Junior High students play basketball in the gym. It was their most favorite activity of the school day. The weather had turned warm, and after four months of unseasonable snow fall the kids decided that yes indeed they would behave enough to earn PAT time (preferred activity time) to have an extra long PE period.
Since February, we in the great state of California had been experiencing the worst weather in 500 years. Everyone expected that once the snow and ice finally melted we’d be flooded. But, we did not expect to be flooded by the mega tsunami coming up the Klamath River corridor from the Pacific Ocean. Seems that there was a massive subduction zone quake of magnitude 10.4 on the intersection of the North American, Juan de Fuca, Pacific and Gorda plates where they with the Mednocino fracture zone converging 12.8 nautical miles from the small coastal town of Petrolia.
Source Note: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/07/24/BAG6GK49HH1.DTL&o=0&type=science, E-mail David Perlman at dperlman@sfchronicle.com.
www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/01/20_marshes.shtml
woodshole.er.usgs.gov/operations/obs/rmobs_pub/html/mendocino.html
www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/plate-tectonics.html
This quake put the Indonesian quake to shame as far as loss of property. Due to the smaller north coast population the direct loss of life was less than 7,500 souls.
The ocean receded twelve miles west and then sent 350 foot tall wall of foaming water cascading over the coastal communities of Ferndale, Petrolia, Eureka, Loleta, Scotia, Manila, Arcata, Mckinleyville, and Trinidad in Humboldt county. Havoc reached 400 miles north and 400 miles south along the Pacific coastline.
Folks were a bit surprised that the dreaded San Andreas Fault was not the culprit, but the Little Salmon fault. The waves crested over the lowest mountains and coursed up the as far inland as 20 miles. Roaring up the Eel, Klamath, Trinity, Mad, Elk, and Smith rivers and their tributaries. The back wash coming down the summits at Lord Ellis and Barry Summits began the back wash of debris filled with timber, soil, gravel, boulders, homes, animals and vehicles with bodies bobbing along.
http://ceres.ca.gov/planning/counties/Humboldt/spatial.html
The now decommissioned nuclear power plant at Little River consisted of just the spent fuel pool.
The dry cask storage units which were waiting to be filled with decaying rods simply vanished with the outgoing waves. The pool had been rumored to be leaking for over 50 years. And now the radiation was spread miles inland and out to sea as the super heated fuel erupted when the cooling waters leaked out with the second wave rushing to the sea. Then the third massive wave washed the broken rods back inland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Bay_Nuclear_Generating_Station
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recent/index.html
The first major building to be wiped out was the county courthouse. And the pink palace (the county jail). In the basement the county Emergency Operations Center and Homeland Security Office was flooded before even one distress call could be received or go out.
All of us were aware that a quake had occurred. The small town I was teaching in is only 39 miles from the coast as the crow flies (75 miles by highway and county roads). Only a few lights fell in the gym as we were all knocked on behinds. The school secretary implemented our Emergency Plan and checked in on us. She said, “Just stay in the gym, school is out soon and the kids deserve their PE time. I’ll call the DO (district office) and Forest Service to get a report on what happened. Don’t sweat it, we still have school.” With a confident smile she walked out of the building. Seconds later, at 2:50 PM the roar of the water cold be heard.
I gathered the students together and told them to follow me to the north east corner of the gym. I said that it sounded like water was coming towards us and a flash flood might be happening. One of the kids said his Dad had a river raft on a trailer just across the field and that he knew it could hold 12 people. The school was located in the center of town, snuggled into a beautiful narrow river valley surrounded by 2nd growth Douglas fir and Pinion Pines. Next to the field was the Indian Housing Subdivision.
Within seconds the roaring was louder and a constant flow of water was entering the gym, quickly rising to about two feet deep. My class had 22 students. I quickly numbered the shortest 11 off and sent them scurrying out the back door of the gym and across the field towards the lot where the raft was. The boy with raft was Johnny. My class was a mix of 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. Being a tiny rural school meant multiple grade classes. The remaining 10 students were my taller, stockier stronger students. Having been raised on the reservation they were tough and in many ways much more mountain wise than I could ever hope to be.
The seconds it took for the raft group to cross the field, climbe the fence and disappear on the other side was a joy to watch. I tried to think quickly on if it were better to stay inside or fight the quickly rising waters. By now the water as up to our necks and the current was trying to pull us out of the gym. We saw much debris in the water and it was dark and very foamy. In seconds the kids were freaking out and crying and screaming.
I had to shout above the roar “Shut up and listen. If you want to die, go out the door. You want to live, then listen to me. Follow my orders and do not give me any crap!” For once this year they actually shut up and listened to me. What a shock!
The two rectangular tables used for holding the score board equipment were floating at this point. I directed the kids to grab on to them. More debris started popping up in the water, washed in by the current of the water. At one table the biggest three boys were on one side starting to capsize it. I swam over and told them to space themselves evenly out, one to a side. The kids had gotten very quiet, except for a few who were crying silent tears.
Josh, one of my big 6th graders said, “Gosh, I have never heard you swear before Mrs. Carlson.” As the water rose in the gym it got pretty dark. My mind was spinning, the water was icy cold, and the kids started to complain about the cold. I asked them “Who saw Titanic?” Josh answered, “Man, are you trying to freak us out more?” I laughed and said “No, but did you know one way to get warm for a few seconds is to pee in the water?” The girls went “Oh, gross!!” Tommy, my class clown, said “Hey it works!!”
As we rose higher and higher towards the gym ceiling I told the kids, “The building is strong, if it hasn’t collapsed yet, it probably won’t, we will float till the water starts to go down we’ll float down and be ok.”
The roar of the water became louder and louder and I thought my idea was pretty lame. I was cold, in shock, and as scared as the kids.
As the water pushed us closer to the ceiling I realized we were 16 feet in the air, which meant we were actually 23 feet above river level. I thought that my BOB in my classroom and in my rig were probably washed either up or down river by now.
As the minutes passed more and more debris kept popping up. Sadly, it included bodies of town folk. The boys and girls started freaking out, especially if they knew the person swirling by. I told them to hang on tight to the tables and to close their eyes or turn their heads.
The water got colder and colder. The gym got darker and darker. I had thought the water would go down quickly. It did not. I had no idea that upriver the Iron Gate Dam had collapsed when fault lines near Yreka broke loose. Sending even more water to our small town.
http://www.friendsoftheriver.org/Publications/RiversReborn/klamath.html
The kids got quiet for awhile. Then they started asking, “Why did this happen?” I could only say that the s**t had hit the fan and that the quake we felt must of caused a tidal wave that reached us. Every once in a while a kid or I would cry out when we were bumped in the dark by a human corpse or the body of a dead animal. The darkness was totally freaking me out.
The water did not go down! I thought we were just going to wear out like the passengers of the Titanic and drop off the tables and drown. Then I thought, hey girl, pray, think, don’t give up. One of my students said, “Hey Mrs. C. please think of something for us to do. I need to get home soon and check in on my Gram and baby brother. I gotta get outta here!”
I looked at my watched and realized it was not working. I asked, “Anyone know what time it is?” Josh said, “Tool time” with a smirk. Then he said, “It is 11:11 PM. Dang, let’s get outta here.”
I told the students. “We are going to push the tables to the walls where the doors are. We will dive down and out in pairs. Remember where the big grandma trees are in the school yard? First swim there and wait for all of us to regroup. After we regroup, we’ll decide where to swim to next, OK.”
My biggest pain in the butt students, two 8th grade girls started to back talk me and moan about the plan. I told them, “Fine, I am no longer your teacher. You want to stay in here with dead bodies all night and drown, then that is your choice. I am getting out of here now.” I started pushing the table I was hanging onto with the two smallest of my students, William a 6th grader and Jessie a 7th grader. William said in a soft voice, “Mrs. C my Mom trusts you and so do I please help me get home.” I patted his shoulder and off we went. As we reached the wall I told the two to take a depth breath and swim down and out and try to grab onto the light fixture at the roof line of the gym and to wait for me. I’d join them when I geo the rest of the kids out.
After watching all the students dive down and out I followed them. I took a deep breath, dove down, clawed my way out of the door and popped up outside.
It was night and the stars were bright. The entire town was covered in water. It was dark and the sliver of moon reflected off the snow covered firs in the school yard. The kids had already swum over to the tall fir trees and I joined them. The current was so strong I almost missed grabbing onto a branch. I held on with all my strength. I was so cold.
The kids were shivering in the dark. I thought of hypothermia and said out loud, “It is a fine fix you got us into this time Ollie”. William replied, “Mrs. C I gotta an idea….”