A 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked the ocean floor Tuesday night about 90 miles southwest of Crescent City, sparking a short-lived tsunami warning across Northern California's coast and prompting a partial evacuation of the coastal town.
The quake struck at 7:50 p.m., and 24 minutes later the town's tsunami sirens began blaring to warn its 7,542 residents. David Duncan wasted no time locking up the Denny's on Fifth Street in Crescent City, where he's the manager. He wanted to get out and head to higher ground. When the quake struck, the restaurant's lights, which are suspended from ceiling chains, began to sway, he said.
"It didn't bother me a bit," Duncan said. "I've lived in California for 40 years and felt plenty of earthquakes."
But the tsunami warning was a whole different story.
Duncan said when the Del Norte County Sheriff's Department issued a warning for everyone to leave town and go 20 miles north to the Oregon border, his customers took their food to go and "split."
"The police are escorting people out of the city," said Paul Rice, a clerk at Ray's Food Place. "There is a line of cars headed out toward Oregon."
Jason Cantrall, a clerk at the Shop Smart Food Warehouse, was breathless.
"I'm trying to get people out right now," he said. "There was stuff falling off the shelves. I got word to evacuate the store. The sheriff's office said they were evacuating six to seven blocks."
By 8:59 p.m. the threat of a potential tsunami had waned, and residents began returning to their homes. Del Norte County Sheriff Dean Wilson estimated about 6,000 people had been evacuated.
It had been 18 years since Crescent City had activated the municipal alarm. They have one especially for tsunamis because 11 people were killed there in 1964 when the Alaska tsunami hit. It was the only fatal tidal wave in California's history.
On Tuesday, a branch of the National Weather Service issued a tsunami warning for the West Coast at 8:14 p.m. The weather service told Wilson he had between 30 and 40 minutes before the wave could hit. He wasn't taking any chances.
"Normally our evacuation plan is everything south of Ninth Street -- approximately 3,000 people," he said. "We also evacuate low-lying areas near Klamath and Smith Rivers -- about 1,000 people.
"The wave was supposed to arrive by 8:29, but there was no wave generation, so we waited 20 minutes and issued an all clear," he continued.
The tsunami- warning system has operated for decades in the Pacific Ocean, and the Hawaii center that issued Tuesday night's alert sends information to 26 nations. Experts say many of the more than 145,000 lives lost in the Dec. 26 southern Asia disaster could have been saved with even a few minutes advance notice
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