While the West Coast of North America received a relatively light slap compared to the devastation in Japan following that nation’s worst-ever recorded earthquake and tsunami, California officials reported an estimated $50 million in damages, centered in two Northern California counties — Del Norte and Santa Cruz. The state’s string of coastal electric generation plants, except for the northern most at Humboldt Bay, reported no impact.

“The tsunami alert that was in effect for most of last Friday [March 11] had a very minor impact,” a Southern California Edison Co. spokesperson told NGI last week.

California has 19 major coastal electric generating plants, including two major nuclear generating sites, which account for about 40% of the state’s electricity needs.

California Gov. Jerry Brown on March 11 declared emergencies in four counties: Humboldt, San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Del Norte. Statewide reports attributed one death to the coastal surge and damage mostly at Santa Cruz, about 50 miles south of San Francisco, and Crescent City, which has experienced 34 or 35 tsunamis in the past 78 years, according to a geology professor tracking such data at Humboldt State University.

Energy companies generally were targeted with warnings, and operations for the most part went on without interruption. The major ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in Southern California halted some cargo operations ahead of a tsunami surge that turned out to be relatively small.

A spokesperson for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. told NGI that there were no problems with its generation plants except for a precautionary shutoff of its 163 MW natural gas-fired Humboldt Bay plant for 2-1/2 hours early March 11 when the tsunami alert first took effect along the West Coast.

To the south, boats and docks were destroyed in Ventura, Santa Barbara and Morro Bay harbors. The worst action was along the south-facing coast at Santa Barbara where a 200-ton crane barge became unmoored and another barge used for the city’s commercial fishing was swept away as fierce waves wreaked havoc for nearly five hours.

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