Sausalito tsunami

A small but dramatic tidal surge flooding the mudflats around Kappas Marina in Sausalito, basically, the March 11, 2011 Pacific tsunami as it came to parts of San Francisco Bay. I unfortunately started filming a few seconds after it started, so I didn't quite get the full effect. Basically, as the whole area in front of the camera had been down to Bay mud just a minute earlier.

More generally, I do not recommend doing what I did, which is get near the water during a tsunami warning, even if it is just San Francisco Bay.

Update: Several people caught this, so I'm linking there videos to give a better overview of what took place. The event I caught was apparent the second and largest of several tidal surges that took place between 9:00 and 9:40 AM.

This was the area several minutes prior:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWfkWANBN_E

The approaching surge, from Sausalito and from Tiburon, respectively:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAxhXf1nTiQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc4CwxC8FQs
(The first was what I saw from I-101 and made me want to look closer -- foolish, I know.)

The surge from two other vantage points, on the houseboats themselves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsDhWUyCdV8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNHe_tCFTrw
(The second of these is more or less right across from where I was filming.)

Two longer videos of the tidal surges:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WufIHukuXp0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXy86uz4yjI

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Sausalito
• California
• tsunami
• March 11 2011
• tidal surge
• houseboats
• San Francisco Bay
• Richardson Bay

[FeministWhore]

does all that water mean more mushrooms? :)

[pgwerner]

@FeministWhore

No – just more mold. :)

[AcademyArtVenture]

great footage! and you did a fine job of recording!  thumbs up!

[pgwerner]

@AcademyArtVenture

Thanks! I couldn't see my viewscreen well at the time and wasn't sure I was getting what I wanted to actually show.

[paganpup]

Nice footage. Referred by your comment at SFGate. While it isn't "newsworthy" it does a great job of illustrating how inexorable such a surge can be. Imagine what it might have been like if it arrived at the peak of high tide rather than the ebb of low tide. (Which could happen this evening, btw.)

[pgwerner]

@paganpup

Thanks! Somebody else caught the view I had seen from Highway 101 several minutes earlier: watch?v=jAxhXf1nTiQ. In retrospect, it was probably a bit foolhardy to go down and investigate, even if it is "just" San Francisco Bay and there had been no evacuation order.

[LESOPARTALO]

TERRORRRRR

[rocionovoa21]

this video is awesome...

[stealthbadger]

O.O