Tsunami alert - stay safe, Pacific coasters!

[Heba]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8540742.stm

Sydney, California...who's affected? Stay safe, everyone!

[mobetsy]

Not expecting much in So Cal, at least at the moment; the forecast is for some rounds of waves maybe 3' bigger than usual. They don't anticipate issuing a tsunami warning. The pictures coming out of Chile sure don't look good, though

[JulieB]

My parents are in Hawaii and the sirens are going off. They were evacuated from their resort in Kauai and were headed to Honolulu to get on a flight back to Dallas. They were scheduled to leave today anyway and we are praying they get on their flight and get out of there.

[Tina]

My brother's BIL and GF left early this morning for a cruise to Hawaii . I'll try to call to see what's going on with them. I hope your parents were able to get out of there Julie. Very scary.

[Cheryl]

My cousin and his family like in Hawaii. They are moving to higher ground .

[sarah]

I guess San Diego and Santa Monica got hit. It was expected to hit Hilo at 1:05 (our time, 11:05 theirs) and we were listening to XM radio at that time and there was nothing. I guess it's happening, but not bad I hope that's the case, they're saying it could still get bad.

[erin]

I just got back from San Luis Obispo and there were emergancy alerts all over the radio to stay away from the beaches. We heard them AFTER the kids went to the beach. oops.

[funnygirl]

JulieB -hope your parents got out.

Prayers for anyone else affected.

[Sally]

All the beaches are closed on the east coast here today. Nippers (junior surf club) was cancelled too - not because they were worried about "land inundation" but apparently tsunami waves (even small ones) are stronger than normal waves, and there are strange and strong currents too. Apparently they measured a 14cm rise in sea level not far from here, but there was a 4m tsunami on one of the Pacific islands that actually killed people earlier today, and I was just reading that they are expecting a 3m high tsunami in Japan.

The situation in Chile must be horrific, this quake was 1000 times stronger than the one in Haiti.

[Heba]

It seems the tsunami waves were less strong than feared - praise God. Japan is still on alert.

Let's keep praying for Chile. For as strong an earthquake as that I worry that the final death toll will be much higher . 2 million people are reported to be affected.