Crescent City & its Devastating 1964 Tsunami
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- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- History Hunters' Jeff & Sarah visit Crescent City to talk about the devastation of the March 1964 tidal wave that washed into downtown, taking the lives of some of its citizens and much of the business district.
#historyhunters #crescentcity #tsunami #alaska #earthquakes
Another great episode of History Hunters. I visited Crescent City back in the early 90's and was able to get out to the light house. One of the stories the docent told us about the sunami of '64 was that the light-house keeper woke up early in the am before sunrise and was mystified why he couldn't hear the pounding of the ocean surf. The silence was deafening so to speak. He went outside and all the water was gone from the harbor. He looked out as far as he could see and all he saw was sandy beach. Apparently, this was the first phase of the sunami, drawing the water completely back for several miles, then pushing it back as a huge wall of water. I'll never forget hearing about that. Thank you for your great coverage of this tragic event.
The island that the lighthouse is on is so small, I'm surprised the tsunami didn't roll right over it. Apparently the lighthouse keeper lived to tell the story. I wonder if he was still inside the building when the tsunami hit?
i'm surprised that they dont have a bridge out to the lighthouse
@@oldermusicloverI grew up there and honestly there's not much need for a bridge. The lighthouse is maybe a 2 minute walk from the nearest shore and is accessible every day at low tides, shit even with a tide if you don't mind getting wet.
@@mrshady8111 thought with things being accessible to those who can't walk maybe they might put in one was the access to the lighthouse always like that?
@@oldermusiclover ADA compliant access is a very valid point. As far as I know it's always been the way it is, just a bit of sand and rock separating the lighthouse from the shore. What's keeping the city from putting one in is the general lack of funds, we spend an exhorbitant amount on road work and other public projects.
Thank you for all the great videos.
Glad you like them!
Hi. All the destruction and loss is so sad to see. Thanks for the history of the town. It was very interesting and informative article. Take care. Deborah 🇨🇦
Wow. Natural disasters are defistating. Must have been very scary to have gone through it. Thanx for the time you put into your videos.
Thanks for the great video. I had never heard of this before.
Thanks for watching! Apparently lots of folks hadn’t heard of this tragedy until my video today.
There was another flood in Northern California that year
A lot of people get them confused or they think that they were the same event.
It glided in Northern California in 1955 too!
My Grandma lived in Crescent City, CA until she died. She lived through this. Heard about it my whole life. So glad you covered this event.
I am curious if you know the history of the Crescent Beach Motel? I have wondered if it existed when the 64 tsunami hit and was rebuilt or did it not exist then? Thank you for any help. I have tried looking up history for that motel and am not having any luck.
Definitely didn’t exist then
Damage also occurred all the way down in San Francisco Bay. Dad's commercial fishing boat capsized when the bow was wedged under the dock at the extreme low of the 'tidal wave'. Boat (50 foot wood salmon fisher) totaled. I was 11 years old. Devastated the family. No income for many months....then Dad finally got a Union job on the Tugboats, and clawed our home away from foreclosure. I learned a lot about life from this incident.
I 💡 natural wants to push these viruses call humans out of there😂😂😂😂
Also on the Oregon and Washington coasts.
This was the first natural disaster I recall as a child. In Sacramento, it was front page news for a week or so, and it taught me about the area, and I moved to a tiny town nestled in the Big Trees behind Crescent City two years ago. I'm a history buff, and a 79 year old neighbor lent me a fascinating magazine commemorating the tsunami's 10 year anniversary. To say this event had a profound impact on the people who were here would be an understatement. The story of it is everywhere around town. My neighbor, a lifelong resident of the city (and former lighthouse keeper) says he is quite comfortable living where he is now, 10 miles inland behind a ridge..
The angle of the coastline along Crescent City made the tsunami impact stronger coming from the Alaskan direction. My home town of Florence Oregon got a tsunami but it was much less destructive and was under 5’ in height. We get 30’+ waves during winter storms here so…… my mother told me she stood on the Hyway 101 bridge to see a 3’ wave run up the Siuslaw River.
Thank you for the History Lesson. Wish YOU were my history teacher. I would’ve passed.
Wow, thanks! I have often said history is being taught by the wrong people…people who aren’t into history.
@@jbenziggy, Jeff I'm in 💯% agreement with that statement! 😢
Jeff would you fulfill my request by visiting the grave of John philip sousa please and you are a sweet kind guy on youtube 🦃🦃
I remember. Worked for the Alaska Communication System.
Both of my parents and my older brothers went through the Alaska earthquake, my dad was running a road grader, trying to drive it over a berm rocking the grader back and forth when he looked up and saw the trees swaying almost hitting the ground, he put it in neutral and stuck his head out the window of the grader and it was just idling as quietly as can be, yet rocking back and forth violently he went to his car and scanned the dial on his radio, he said he didn’t hear anything but static, he said it felt like I was the last man on Earth. all the water wells in that part of Alaska were stirred up and pumping dirty water for several days, grass mats growing on lake bottoms broke loose and floated to the surface turning lakes into swamps, other places land subsided and was inundated by the Cook inlet, killing whole forests.
Quaint little seaside town. My heart felt condolences for all the troubles they've had to deal with and respect for their tenacity and determination to restore and rebuild 👍
I was there in Crescent City the day after the quake. I was a 21 year old full time college student in San Francisco working part time at KFRC radio. The news director, Carlton Cordell, asked if I wanted to fly with him to Crescent City to cover the story. I agreed and we charted a single engine plane and flew to a landing strip outside the City and then borrowed a car and drove to the City. While there we interviewed survivors and disaster officials. It was the start of my 41 year career in broadcasting. We later flew back to San Francisco that night with a Time Magazine reporter and a Life Magazine photographer hitching a ride.
I grew up in Fort Bragg, where we received harbor damage from the same surname that damaged the harbor and even put the Coast Guard cutter on the bottom of the harbor the pushed it into the upper mooring basin when the wall of water came back in. My uncle lost his 60' salmon trawler when water was sucked out of the harbor and was destroyed on the jetty a half mile away. The earthquake was bad, but very few buildings were destroyed. I guess we were lucky. Thank you for bringing back a memory of my childhood.
I was 13 yrs. old when this happened and my family lived in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. I babysat for a young couple in town. Her mother and brother were killed in the 1964 Crescent City tsunami. The mother and her husband owned a small shop of some sort in town. Sad to say that the 3 of them (husband, wife and their teenage son) survived the first wave. But being unfamiliar with the nature of tsunamis, the mom and son left their place of safety to return to their business. Then the next wave struck. My brother now lives about 15 miles inland from Crescent City. The little coastal town has never really fully recovered from this tsunami. It is a very depressed town these days. Thank you for this walk down memory lane.
Coast guard cutter did not sink....we had mild damage
Great story about crescent City and the 64 tidal wave.
I've been to crescent City many times it's one of my favorite places in California.
The year 1964 was very hard on Northern California.
Besides the tidal wave there was massive flooding in that part of Northern California and Oregon.
I lived on a farm on the outskirts of Vallejo California and I was 6 years old in 1964.
I remember the flood and I also remember seeing the giant fire that burned a good part of the Northern Napa valley all the way to Santa Rosa.
It rained so hard that winter the little creek on our farm turned into a raging river.
1964 was quite a year in California
It was also the year that Gene Mauch steered the Phillies to 2nd place with a ten game losing street to lose the pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals. Cards went on to win the world series. Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game in the summer of 1964 vs the NY Mets. I was 11 years old and was listening to my transistor radio about midnight in bed when the 1964 Earth Quake and tsunami hit Alaska and the water came into Crescent City. My cousins and uncles lived in Crescent City at that time and still do.
FYI-- locals pronounce Del Norte County "dell-NORT", and not as it is in Spanish.
I grew up in the area and was a small child at the time. This was a tough couple of years for Crescent City. There was a major storm in 1962 called the Columbus Day Storm which blasted the entire Pacific Northwest. Though the center of the storm was in Oregon, Crescent City was affected. Then came the Christmas Flood of 1964 which devastated and isolated Northern California. These three events have had no parallel since-- a unique trio of disasters.
I understand that Crescent City harbor has some unusual underwater topography that causes especially strong tsunami waves.
The harbor in Brookings (25 miles north) apparently had similar topography and therefore similar damage in 2011. It didn’t affect some of the larger harbors that were relatively close. A lesser amount of damage happened in Depoe Bay on the central Oregon coast… again, similar topography.
I couldn’t imagine how scary this must have been. 21 feet high on the last wave. I’m surprised anything survived this Tsunami. I wonder how the headstones in the cemetery held up? How fast was the water moving?
I can see why this community is in poverty, cyclones and tsunamis. People moving out & on.
History seems to repeat itself there.
This was so interesting, but tragic. A 9.2 magnitude earththquake is almost hard to imagine! **Those poor people, in both places. I know it began in Alaska, but the devastation it produced so far away, shows its strength.Those pictures tell the horrific tale. Thanks so much, Jeff, for sharing this. 🌊❤️🩹
My stepfather was Colonel in the Air force. He was stationed in Anchorage Alaska when this happened.
He was the commander of a base on Fire Island.. It took about 5 days to find out if he was alright. My husband and I were living in Medford, Oregon at the time. About a hour drive to Crescent City. My mom and younger sisters and brother were temporarily living with my grandmother in Medford, while waiting to be able to join him in Alaska.Thet had been due to leave that month, but we're delayed due to the quake. It was months before we could go to Crescent City.. We had a friend in Brookings, Oregon. Normally, you took a brief jaunt thru California, driving thru Crescent City and back into Oregon and Brookings. Had to take a round about way for awhile. Driving north on the coast highway now days you see many tsunami warning areas.
Thanks for sharing! Earthquakes can ruin life without warning along the pacific rim as we saw in California in 1989 with the Loma Prieta quake. We did notice all the tsunami warning signs that marked low lying areas of Highway 1.
Another video that the two of you have so professionally researched. I only follow two specific youtube vlogs. Yours is the first one that I follow. The two of you have taken me on many journeys. Thank you for that.
Thanks to you and Sarah. Never really knew about this city. Knew about Alaskan earthquake. Thanks for the history lesson again!
Our pleasure!
I had never heard about this tsunami. Thanks for the history lesson. I can always count on History Hunters for an interesting Sunday.
I’ve driven through crescent city dozens of times and had no idea the history. Thanks
Glad you enjoyed it!
I grew up in Humboldt County and remember my one friend's dad say he was alive because his parents and his friends parents wouldn't let him and his friends go down to beach and watch the tsunami in 1964, they were teenagers. I remember driving by Crescent Beach on 101 right after the 2011 tsunami and seeing the solid wall of driftwood right up to the fog line on the beach side.
I clearly remember that Earthquake and Tidal Wave I was 8 and my folks had to assure me we didn't get Earthquakes like they do on the West Coast and we were safe in Virginia
Oh but there are earthquakes back east! Wasn’t there recently one in Tennessee or some state in the east coast?
@@jbenziggyYes, Virginia, Tennessee Georgia and over 100 in two years in South Carolina and a few in North Carolina. There were small ones. A bunch of the SC quakes were less than a mile from my house. The largest was a3.3
I sure do appreciate your channel and all the places you visit and the history 'lessons' that goes with the visits!
Our pleasure! Thank you!
Excellent as usual! Thanks Jeff & Sarah for this content! We really miss the Northern California coast! This event is just a fading memory for some. Great job! Your biggest Tennessee (formerly California) fans! I can’t tell you how much my heart aches for the Pacific Ocean… *sigh*
Sounds like you guys need to plan a trip to California in 2023! Thank you for being our biggest fans in Tennessee!
@@jbenziggy ♥️
I found I just couldn’t leave this coast. I went to grad school in the midwest and I pined for it, and sourdough bread🙂
As a former Alaskan I’ve seen dozens of photos from there and have heard story after story about the quake from people who lived there then. And I have certainly heard stories about the tsunami hitting this city but nothing as extensive as you have shared and I have never seen photos. Thanks for the info
This is interesting, just a few weeks ago our daughter was visiting and we took her over to the coast in Brookings, and we were talking about Crescent City getting hit by tsunamis. I'm going to have to send her this video.
I was born and raised in Crescent City and witnessed this event and the immediate aftermath. Our house was just a few blocks above the run-up (where the water stopped), and my dad and I went downtown about 2:30AM just after the last wave to see what had happened. Of course, now we know the sensible thing to do would have been to go to higher ground and stay there for at least several hours in case another and bigger wave was coming. My mom took 4 of the photos of the aftermath that you used several times in the video, and the 1925 photos of the waterspout damage are also from my family collection. I've posted them online in a few places and you are welcome to use them - I'm just giving myself a little credit where it is due. The old house in the photo that appears at 6:03 minutes in and again at 6:42 minutes was where my grandfather was born in 1889. Back then it was the home of the town midwife, and many babies were born in it in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Just one little bit of the physical history that got wiped out that night. And BTW, the name of the county is pronounced "Del Nort" and not "Del Nor-tay." This pronunciation may have come from the particular dialect spoken by early Portuguese settlers.
My uncle was Lyle Griffin...the CC Fire Chief at the time this tsunami hit....His house survived but has been replaced by the Home Depot parking lot...Asbury's Trucking is gone as well.....Spent many summers there
My goodness, what terrible things can happen with weather. They were completely at the mercy of wind and water. I had no idea Thank you Jeff
Before and after photos are awsome. Its a pity people become complacent with warning sirens but we do. Those tsunamis are so powerful.
Thank you for the history. I had a student move into my classroom in Rio Vista, CA from Crescent City just following that tsunami devastation. His father was a commercial fisherman and he relocated his family soon after this happened. My cousin was living in Anchorage and sitting in a waiting room at her doctor’s appointment when they earthquake hit. She watched as two blocks in front of the doctor’s office the earth opened up and swallowed whatever businesses were at the center. Her family immediately relocated to Ohio following that quake.
My son’s family lived in Crescent City during the 2011 Japan earthquake which sent another tidal wave to wash out the boats and the pier. He has since relocated to Arizona.
I suppose Ohio is safe but Arizona is never going to have a problem, there's no water there at all.
@@FloozieOne I don’t get it; who wants to live in a place that gets as hot as it gets there for half the year (or more), or live with the lousy air quality? Is it geographically beautiful? Yes. However, when driving down the mountains from the north, as you get closer to Phoenix, there is often a blanket of gray “air” covering the valley. And yet the developers just keep on building, and people just keep on buying. Golf courses and swimming pools keep swallowing up water, water, and more water. And the people seem to be oblivious to the precipice that is tipping AZ into a drought stricken wasteland.
A giant tsunami hit the same area in January 1700 as a result of the Cascadia megathrust earthquake. It devastated tribes in
the area and reached the coast of Japan.
Jeff that was some real natural disasters on the Cresent City. Had no Idea . A great lesson and historical video. Thank you for your work.
💯👍👊
My Great Aunts and Uncle were living just outside of town (one Auntie was a former teacher in town) and described the mayhem of the tsunami. Fortunately their area was too far inland so they were spared damage personally. I was there visiting them with my parents, a few months after, and it was terrible in town still.
Wow, I didn't know anything like this happened in CA! We live in the Central Coast of CA. I remember hearing of a tsunami warning after first moving here. We ran for the hills, literally, and stayed the night at a hotel about 30 minutes from town, lol! I'd love if you'd cover topics in the Central Coast. Thank you so much for sharing!
Great documentary! I was born and raised in California and this was a great history lesson i never heard of until now-and ill be 50 next year. Thanks for the education.
I remember this, I was 14. My aunt & uncle lost their home also, they lost everything but their lives. We had moved 2 years prior. I’ve never seen this, very interesting ! Thank you.
That's always tragic when someone loses their home. I appreciate you sharing!
sister took me to a park and the bathroom bldg had a marking of the water height on it, totally amazed at the power of tsunamis because of that
Thank you Jeff & Sarah for another fascinating history lesson. You guys certainly had a fantastic summer crisscrossing the country, well done. Have a great Sunday and week ahead.
Our pleasure!
The tsunami on Japan flowed 5 miles inland. Good job you guys.
Wow never knew Alaska had the biggest earthquake. 300 thousand to clean up in 1964 is 2.9 million in today's money. What a great story thanks for sharing Jeff and Sarah.
Wow . Jeff good video guys. ! That tsunami in crescent city was only a little more then a month from when the BEATLES did their first Ed Sullivan show. O. By the way that was February 9 , 1964. I know cause I watched it. THANK YOU FRANK FROM MONTANA.. PS Your work is incredible .......
As a matter of fact, my cousins lived in Crescent City and we were visiting them when the wave came in. Thier house was on the bluffs so we watched it roll in. What an awesome sight!!! My cousins worked at Seaside hospital and her husband was the past postal master for the area. Needless to say, we didn't get back home to Requa CA till the next day. I remember it all so clearly from back then.
Were you folks scared from that wave hitting their town?!
@@jbenziggy Yes, but where my cousins house sat was much higher and overlooked the ocean not the harbor. It was a huge mess. Then that same year came the 64 flood that took out a lot of Klamath, and the highway 101 bear bridge. We lived in Requa CA which is at the mouth of the Klamath River, it to sat upon a hill overlooking the river.
My Aunt Dorothy lived in Anchorage Alaska at the time and came home just 15 minutes before the earthquake. I still have the letter she wrote to my mother after the earthquake. I didn’t know about the tsunami in California. We lived in Iowa back then. Thank you for this information.
I didn't realize the Crescent City tsunami was that bad. My parents lived in Anchorage during the quake, my mom pregnant with my sister. Said there was a 200 foot crevice that opened up outside their front door. After my sister was born, they moved to Seattle to get way from the quake & aftershocks, only to be hit with the Seattle quake of 65.
Lived in Cresent City, CA for a month. Windy, right at sea level. I remember this well. In Eureka, CA was a flood everywhere also in 2964! EEL river was at an all time high flood stage. One man was in a bar & water just wooshed him out in Crescent City!
Woops flood occured in 1964.
1964 was the year of the Christmas Flood- it devastated communities from Washington down to California.
My mom's family is from Crescent City. She was in high school when this happened. My grandfather worked for Caltrans at the time and ran a shovel during the clean up. His cousin owned a gas station and rode out the event in a car on a lift in the garage of the station.
Wish you two made it across to the lighthouse ,such a beautiful beach scene 👍
Yeah we were bummed! I got to visit it in 1993 but not this time!
1964 was a particularly tough year for Del Norte, Humboldt, and Mendocino Counties. In December of 1964, those counties experienced a flood of biblical proportions.
I didn't live here when that happened, but anyone who was here at the time can't forget the flood.
I had a relationship with someone who experienced the Dec flood when the snowmelt raised the high water well over 100' above normal in some spots.
Extremely destructive.
I remember my dad saying that the first couple of streets closest to the ocean in Anchorage we’re actually sunk underwater and are still there to this day.
One of the more interesting tidbits about the 1964 disaster is how it was handled. I am going to say "fire department" for this story beings I'm not sure exactly which one this happened to. But either ways, they get a teletype about a "tsunami" heading their way. The people reading the teletype's reaction was simply "anybody know what a T Sue Nami is?" The people who sent the warning suddenly realized they wouldn't know what the term was. So they resent the teletype and used the term "Tidal Wave" - which, of course, got their attention. But they made what I think was a very wise decision. Nearly all the businesses were closed by that time so it was decided to NOT send out any warning to the community. If word got out that a "tidal wave" was heading their way, most of the people would stupidly go ashore to watch it come in. So the first wave comes in and it was so small that it was more of a nuisance than anything threatening. The wave receded. People come down to see what damage has been done and start cleaning up. But 45 minutes later they notice the ocean is acting up again so the people that are there run back, and the second wave comes in and it was even smaller than the first one. Back to cleaning up. It dawns on a policeman that those waves were something like 45 minutes apart - which meant another one was going to come in about 30 or so minutes. He tells everybody to get back. They retort by saying "Oh come on, you saw how small those other two waves were", and ignore him. And guess what happened next? Right. THAT was the wave that was 20 feet high. It was awful that 14 people got killed, but you know it and I know it, it could have been way worse. But it is this incident in particular that I learned a valuable lesson to actually LISTEN. Don't go near the water until they tell you it's okay. These events can last for hours before the water calms down. The ocean is definitely something you don't screw around with. Great video by the way.
Thanks for the video. I'm from Crescent City. I was in the Navy boot camp in San Diego , when this happened.
Glad you enjoy it, Frank! Thanks!
The historic pictures were interesting to see with what is currently there. Twenty one feet is a scary size. You mentioned several buildings moved at a 45 degree angle. Is there a reason for why multiple buildings were at that same angle?
I lived in Eureka, 80 miles south of Crescent City, for 30 years and never knew half of that information. Eureka was more of an earthquake danger zone, being about 150 miles from the Mendocino Triple Junction, the northern end of the San Andreas fault and the southern end of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. But in all those years, and thousands of small earthquakes that happened all the time but nobody ever really noticed or cared about, we only had four earthquakes that really stand out in my (admittedly bad) memory. A 7.2 on April 25th, 1992, a rather shallow 6.5 on January 9th, 2010, a 6.8 on March 9th, 2014 and the "Christmas Quake" on December 20th, 2022 that was a 6.4. I was there for the last three, but I was in Arizona on vacation in 1992. But the Christmas Quake must been the earth's way of saying "Remember Eureka" because we had been preparing to move to southern California in January.
Very interesting, he is a favorite stop of mine one in the northern California area. It was so fascinating to find out about the flood. I have actually been fine. Subscribe to you guys, neat channel!💜
Thanks for finding us and welcome! We enjoy seeing new folks joining our family!
I visited Crescent City two years ago. I didn't realize the city has taken such a beating for the last 100 years?!
Hello Jeff and Sarah, Thanks for sharing this story and history. How sad it was for the people who lost their lives. Again, thanks for what you do. Have a wonderful day!
My beautiful Man ,was born and raised in Crescent city,and so he resides there laid to rest,gone to young, RIP.Robert W.NEWTON ,when i see all.the beautiful.scenes there ,the beach,the lighthouse,the redwoods,the jetty, that was all his turf,it takes me to a sweeter place ,in the memories of my mind ❤️ 💙 ♥️, My one and only LOVE ❤️
Crescent City is not so much of a poverty area. Lots of nice ranches...farms....residential areas. You will not find homeless...trash....methheads as you do in places such as Sacramento...Eureka....Clear Lake.
Do you live there? My brother lives in the area, and we have talked about how Crescent City never fully recovered economically from that tsunami. And while there are, indeed, some lovely areas in the Crescent City area, Crescent City itself is looking very dumpy and faded. It’s too bad, because it is geographically such a beautiful area.
Very interesting it’s funny how many significant events like this happened that are lost to history
We also called it the Good Friday Earthquake , which happened on my tenth birthday... We lived in Orange County but psychologically it felt close, with Crescent City being a familiar place. The photos of both Anchorage and Crescent City in the news struck horror in my ten-year-old heart. It was after this earthquake that all the hype about California and the Big One (falling into the Pacific Ocean) got started.
Born and raised in San Francisco, I well remember the 1964 quake in Alaska; I was a junior in high school. I do not recall whether we felt the quake in the City, but it wouldn't surprise me.
My late husband said his uncle had a boat in the Redwood City harbor (not quite 30 miles south of SF), and the tsunami came in the Golden Gate, rushed down the bay, and ruined numerous boats in that harbor, including the one belonging to the uncle.
I was aboard USS Yorktown CVS10 stationed in Long Beach we had to pull out To open water at 2 o'clock in e morning Because the tidal wave threatened Long Beach because the tidal wave was threatening Long Beach But it passed us by I and Long Beach was .unscabed
Think I'd move. Course I never liked the ocean. Bigger things than me live in it. Often wondered about one of the dams on the Colorado River, up stream from me collapsing. Even checked out a map of the safe zone.😊
Im amazed that more than 12 people didn’t lose their lives that day.
RIP to those unfortunate 12 people. The terror 😬 that town must have felt. ❤️Jodie 🇦🇺
Yeah, it is very surprising to learn that there were very few casualties for the amount of damage that was done. I guess when people saw the waves finally arriving, they hightailed it to dry ground.
@@jbenziggy I think that the narrator said that this town only had about 6600 people living there. So 12 out of 6600 people is a lot of people in terms of percentage.
Very interesting. Great commentary. I have wanted to move up towards Eureka and that area but with the tsunamis the big earthquakes, the high winds and funnel clouds I changed my mind. When you have earthquakes that knock your house off its foundation like in Ferndale that's a little extreme for me.
Love living in Eureka! I get to see redwoods everyday!
Sent to fast. ( hope not to look like a jerk AGAIN ) my first comment goes as well for the Alaska disaster. Thank you again . its warm today in montana. Gonna be 58 today ,after your video I gotta split fire wood , all day today. ..
Hilo, Hawaii also has a history of deadly tsunami, and is also known by the nickname "the crescent city", because of the strikingly similar shape of the bay and beach -- and even the breakwater. Not saying that the nickname was a *reference* to CC California, but to the shape of the bay. The crescent shaped coastline funnels the tsunami wave to inland.
Hours after the earthquake and Tsunami up north, I remember the water receding out to sea so far within 10 minutes, you could literally walk around the Capitola Wharf. No one knew what the hell was going on.
Thank you so much for this! I remember this event well. We were staying at the beach down the coast for Easter week when it happened. Nothing happened down there but we were on high alert. This is the first in-depth depiction I have seen of this sad event.
Very well done!
I remember when this happened, I was a child living in San Francisco. Some people had to go to Lands End which on the cliffs. That didn't turn out to be a good idea.
Thanks for showing what happened in Crescent City after the 1964 Alaskan Earthquake. I was a young boy, living with my parents, and two sisters, at Ft. Richardson AK when the earthquake hit, that fateful day. Dad was stationed at Ft. Richardson, with the U.S. Army, then, and was a Combat Photographer. Some of the pictures from downtown Anchorage you shown could have been taken, or developed by him. I still remember where I was sitting and what TV program we were watching when the quake hit. Afterwards we had to boil water and mom had to put a TBS of bleach/gallon of water to purify it. It tasted awful! Hard to believe that it was 60 years ago! Again, thanks for this video!
What a horrible thing to live through. I live in California so I’ve experienced my share of earthquakes but nothing that severe. Hard to believe it has been that long ago. I was three years old that year!
@@jbenziggy you know, I talk about it now with pride. Proud of my father and what he accomplished. Proud of what my mother did and proud of the people of Alaska and their strength and resiliency.
Stayed last year at the hotel and walked to the nice harbor , to a small hill at the breakaway. I be back again one day, when I visit Jediah Redwoods. Thanks for making the video. Nice clean small city with friendly people.
When I was in grade school we had an assembly and the speaker was an Alaskan earthquake survivor, I found it fascinating. Today was the first time, hearing how far and wide the damages were. Thank you History hunters.
Thanks, Susan! California is earthquake country all its own! Our part of California is relatively safe from fault lines!
Good story. I worked for the California Conservation Corp at Del Norte center in the early and mid 90's and lived in Cresent City for a bit afterwards.
We love Crescent City. We go to Sea Cruise every October. I had no idea about the other disasters there. We were hit in British Columbia by the 1964 tsunami also. Nancy
I was 11 years old. I remember this clearly, but after watching this I know a lot more about what actually happened! It seems like a group of bar patrons went down to the shore to see what they could see, and were swept away?
Reminds me of the Hilo tsnamis … late 50’s or early 60’s … but the breakwall does not really work as intended.
Hilo, Hawaii is equally prone to tsunami damage, having been decimated in both 1946 and 1960, with a cumulative death total of about 150. After the second major tsunami of 1960 - there having been smaller ones in a number of other years - much of what had been downtown was turned into open parkland to get as much out of the way as possible. In contrast to Crescent City, however, the Alaskan tsunami of 1964 caused only minor flooding.
Maybe cover history of Ukiah, Mendocino? (unless you already have)
History was my favorite class on High School. It's the only class I maintained a grade above 90.
I love Crescent city. I would live there if I could. Favorite vacation spot for us. I know the town is full of druggies and it’s not the safest town but I would love to live there.
Amazing not more people perished. Ive been to Crescent City...love it
I remember that event in 1964. Thanks for the visuals and story
Another Excellent story, thank you Jeff!
Thanks for listening!
My father was a ham radio operator who offered help with telecommunications from CC.
This was amazing so many things happened at the same time. This town was hit every which way at once.
I was 21 at this time and I was in the Air Force stationed in Eastern Wash. State. I can't remember if I even paid any attention to the news about either
disaster. I had to have heard about it. So March 28th 1964 was only 4 months after President Kennedy was killed. I'm sure our base was still dealing with
that effect. = I'm sure many regretted not paying attention the the warning siren. Same in Leyte, Philippines when the warning of a high tide from the big
storm coming in. Hundreds died because they just thought it would be a normal tide surge. Great story, thank you.
I don't think I would live there, that same disaster is likely to happen again. 😢 I had no idea that this happened. Thanks for Sharing. 😊
Great story, Jeff, I've never heard this one before, so that was very interesting. The tsunami that hit there in 2011. I wasn't aware that California had gotten hit. Thanks for sharing, and a great story as usual.
I have a friend that moved there in recent years and she love it but I don’t know if I would have the courage to live there with all the disasters that happen there. Thank you so much for bringing this history to us because I had no idea how devastating the weather had been to that area.
Loved the video! I've been watching for a long time now. I started a channel this summer and now I really understand and appreciate the work you put into it. Maybe with some more time and experience I will be able to match your quality. I would love to do more history like this. Who knows, I might be able to do this full time eventually. Keep up the good work!
Something I will NEVER FORGET! I was on 5 and a half years old and we lived in Anchorage, Alaska at the time. My Dad was stationed at Ft Richardson. My Mom and my 2 twin sisters (13 months old) were home when it happened. It was "GOOD FRIDAY" and my precious Momma thought that Jesus was coming back. We left Alaska in the Spring of "65 and to this day, I HAVE NO DESIRE to ever go back. Earthquakes I know happen everywhere, BUT I AM TERRIFIED of one that size.
Earthquakes are absolutely no fun at all! They seem like they're going forever when they occur.
I never knew about this. That was bad!
Thank you for this look back in history. I was a senior in high school on the East coast, and remember hearing about the earthquake, but not the tsunamis. This is a reminder to be “better safe than sorry,” and heed the warnings. Very sad that Crescent City is a poverty area-it looks like it could be a nice tourist destination.
My family and I go there often. Its not too bad.
Thank You Jeff & Sarah for another very interesting episode of History Hunters on one of my fave places in Northern California, Crescent City,Calif. the city installed the break waters in 1957...? Lot of Good it did em in 1964. Main reason I don't live in Eureka or the Crescent city area is I don't feel like going for a swim in the very cold water there but I still do enjoy going there for a visit once in a while. I'm so close but yet far enough away so I don't need to swim home after a few at the local tavern. So many cool old classic cars and buildings destroyed by Mother Nature, Again. Dang it.
As one who lived in Crescent City both in Jed Smith State Park & again right outside of the park, Crescent City has many historical facts & crazy things happening there. Historically, you might want to mention the sacred site called Yontocket, where one of the worst massacres against the Tolowa Native tribes occurred by the US government in California history. It's a beautiful beautiful site with the whispers of those perished still there. It's truly sacred. Also, Del Norte County (spec. within the park we lived) has a history of Bigfoot/Sasquatch sightings which I personally experienced while jogging within the park, as well as while riding my horse right outside of the park, which continue to this day as well as documented cases of the sheriffs dept chasing down UFOs in the 1990's. Del Norte county unfortunately also has a history of many murders & even bodies being dumped by serial killers who travel up & down us 101, one being dumped within the state park. It also has dangerous marijuana plantations growing on Federal land, making it very dangerous for hikers who stumble upon them & of course Pelican Bay State Prison, which houses the worst of the worst in CA, which is the main reason why we moved away (& the cruddy weather).......Who would have thought such a small area has so much? Thought this might interest you.
How weird to come across this video, we were just there the week of October 24 for our anniversary. We had spent the night there 9 years ago and we wanted to go back so we went this year. Our trip was cut short because of airline delays and we lost some sightseeing time. We loved it so much we are going again next year for our 20 year anniversary and are going to stay at the hotel we stayed at in 2014. This time we stayed at a hotel just on the other side of where the big foot statue is but we like the other hotel much better. I wish I could have seen this video before we went so I could look out for some of the stuff you mentioned, I’ll watch it again before we go next year. I do say that I did get some pretty epic night pictures of the lighthouse from our hotel. Thank you for sharing the info of Crescent City, now I know all those signs of tsunami zones are pretty serious. I would absolutely love to live there.