>Tsunami Reaches California After Soaking Hawaii

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A tsunami wave reached the West Coast of the U.S. this morning with threats of waves as tall as nine feet that could strike from California to Alaska.
Residents along the northern California and Oregon coasts reported seeing the tell-tale sign of an impending tsunami — the waterline quickly withdrawing from the beach prior to large incoming waves.
The tsunami, which has claimed hundreds of lives in Japan, triggered warning sirens across the Pacific and led to evacuations as far away as Hawaii and Oregon.
By the time the tsunami reached California around 7:45 a.m. PST, it had soaked Hawaii’s beaches but done little lasting damage there.
Officials were cautiously optimistic that the West Coast would fare similarly, but warned of waves as high as 9 feet, and banned boaters and surfers in California from entering the water.
Warning sirens began blaring in some Oregon coastal communities in the small hours of the morning, and residents were urged to seek higher ground.
Orgeon officials said highways were congested with residents evacuating low lying ares near Florence.
Sam McAlmond, a resident of Gold Beach, Ore., chose not to evacuate, but is prepared to leave his home if it becomes necesary.
“This doesn’t happen too often. We liked to see it if and when anything happens,” he said of the tsunami. “We have all of our necessary equipment — fresh water and food. Filled up the tank with gas and there is an escape route.”
McAlmond said he had not seen any significant waves from his beach front home.
In California, the city of San Francisco activated it’s emergency operations response team and closed its coastal highway. All coastal access to San Francisco area beaches have been closed.
The 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit Japan Friday afternoon local time, triggering a tsunami that is speeding across the Pacific Ocean at speeds of 500 mph, as fast as a jet airplane.
Hawaii Gets Soaked But More Waves Anticipated
The tsunami reached Hawaii around 3:30 a.m. local time. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says Kauai was the first island hit early by the wave, which quickly swept through the Hawaiian Island chain. There were no immediate reports of serious damage.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey the first wave to hit is not as large as experts anticipated, but bigger ones are expected to follow.
Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie ordered the evacuation of coastal areas. Through the night, residents waited on lines to buy gas, bottled water, canned food and generators.
At least tens of thousands of people were evacuated and there were reports of fighting at gas stations as people fuel up their cars to move inland in Hawaii.
“We have been hearing those reports and we’ve asked everybody to stop doing that, to get out of the way and that their hindering the evacuation,” Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle said.
“It’s not just a wave, it’s a series of waves and no one knows which one will be the strongest, no one knows which one will do the most of damage and we don’t even know how long they will last, they could last for a series of hours,” Carlisle said.
Officials did not regret the call for evacuations. “We called this right. This evacuation was necessary,” said geophysicist Gerard Fryer in Hawaii. “There’s absolutely no question, this was the right thing to do.”
Brian Shiro of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the tsunami that will reach the Wes Coast “loses a little bit of power because of friction from the bottom of the ocean, but this tsunami is pretty sufficient.”
Shiro said the West Coast could see waves as high as 9 feet.
“Some places in California will see 6 feet in some cases 9 feet. This could certainly be a bad day for people on the beach. If you have a house right on the water… it could be flooded,” he said.
Tsunami Racing Across the Pacific at 500 MPH
The tsunami is expected to hit Los Angeles at 8:30 a.m. local time, but another, bigger wave is expected two hours later when the tide is higher, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The 8.9 magnitude earthquake is the fifth largest ever recorded and extended along a 400 mile fault zone.

>Tsunami warnings on US west coast has Oregon residents moving inland(Video)

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Tsunami warnings coming off the huge Japan earthquake Friday has Oregon residents and others along the US west coast moving away from the shore. Tsunami warnings are also in effect for the Hawaiian Islands.
Residents living near beaches along the Oregon coast evacuated their homes Friday morning, and gift shops and other businesses stayed shuttered as a tsunami surged across the Pacific following a massive earthquake in Japan.
Some evacuees in Seaside drove into a hilly area overlooking town to wait for the predicted big waves, which were expected to hit the Oregon coast between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m.Restaurants, gift shops and other businesses in the tourist town were shuttered, and hotels were evacuated.Evacuations were reported in parts of several coastal communities.Streams of eastbound traffic were reported on some roads near the coast as residents sought higher ground, and long lines were reported at some gas stations.
Coastal communities were bracing for waves of up to 6 feet that could cause damage.Schools up and down the coast were closed.
Gov. John Kitzhaber issued a statement urging “all Oregonians along the coast to heed tsunami alarms and follow instructions from public safety officials about heading to higher ground.”Kitzhaber added, “Our thoughts are with the people of Japan.”
Emergency management officials have been up all night making preparations after getting word of the tsunami.

>Slow start costs UCLA in Pac-10 tournament loss to Oregon

>It’s going to be a long weekend for UCLA even though the Bruins will not play again.

They will have the next 72 hours to mull a foible-filled 76-59 loss to Oregon on Thursday at Staples Center in the Pacific Life Pac-10 tournament quarterfinals, the second-seeded Bruins playing as if they were somehow owed a victory over the seventh-seeded Ducks.”They had the mentality that they didn’t have anything to lose,” UCLA forward Tyler Honeycutt said. “We came in here with a ‘too cool’ of an attitude.”
The nonchalance resulted in another sluggish start and possibly the most mortifying moment of Coach Ben Howland’s UCLA tenure, when the Bruins received a technical foul in the first half for having six players on the court after a timeout.
“That was embarrassing,” Howland said. “That right there was like indicative of the night. That that could actually happen is unbelievable.”
Some people never learn, it seems.
That Oregon (16-16) could hand UCLA (22-10) its worst loss of the season resulted in part from the Bruins’ seasonlong habit of slow starts finally catching up with them. The Ducks used a 14-1 surge over a 4½-minute stretch late in the first half to take a 15-point lead.Even before then, it seemed clear the Bruins weren’t matching Oregon’s intensity. Sophomore forward Reeves Nelson, UCLA’s leading scorer, went scoreless in the first half and finished with seven mostly meaningless points.
“Just started from warmups,” said Honeycutt, who scored 19 points but was the only Bruin in double figures. “Guys weren’t taking, like, game shots, weren’t really being focused.”The Ducks will play Washington in a semifinal at 8:30 p.m. Friday.
Oregon spread the floor in the early going and repeatedly beat UCLA off the dribble for layups. Forward E.J. Singler scored 11 of his career-high 24 points in the first half, including a buzzer-beating three-pointer that gave the Ducks a 38-24 halftime lead.The Bruins never came within single digits again, a brief attempt to pound the ball inside early in the second half proving futile.
“It just stinks knowing a team is beating you the way they were beating us,” Bruins freshman center Joshua Smith said, “and we weren’t doing anything about it.”
UCLA’s Malcolm Lee gutted out 28 minutes in his first game since being diagnosed with torn cartilage in his left knee, but the junior guard wasn’t much of a factor on offense, taking only three shots and scoring six points.
Nelson compounded his poor first half by receiving a technical foul in the second half for complaining about a non-call underneath the basket.
“That was just me losing my cool for a little bit,” he said.
Howland, who said the defeat “starts with me,” held a lengthy closed-door meeting with his players after the game. “The No. 1 thing I tried to talk about with our team is that everybody’s got to come right back and put it right here as to our performance tonight,” he said, pointing to his heart.
The Bruins were considered an NCAA tournament lock by most prognosticators regardless of their performance in the Pac-10 tournament, but their seeding will certainly suffer in the wake of the early exit.