It will take a tsunami 3 hours to strike Tacoma if 9.0 quake hits off coast
It will take less than three hours for Tacoma to be hit by a tsunami if “The Big One” strikes off the Washington coast.
That’s according to a new series of simulations, released by the state Department of Natural Resources on Tuesday, showing what parts of the coastline would be hit by tsunamis following a magnitude 9.0 earthquake.
Most of Puget Sound’s shoreline, including Tacoma, would be hit by a series of tsunamis as water sloshes around in the Pacific like waves in a bathtub.
A 10-foot-tall wave or higher would hit Tacoma and the surrounding area nearly three hours after a hypothetical magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the simulation shows. Another smaller wave would hit an hour later and then another an hour after that.
The coast would be the first hit, about 20 minutes after the quake. Then, waves would travel down the Strait of Juan de Fuca and into the Sound.
The simulation shows the Long Beach Peninsula getting hit by at least seven waves over five hours. In between those hits, wave troughs would essentially drain the shoreline before filling back up again.
Data for the simulations came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.
This story was originally published August 28, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
