Tsunami watch

If by now you haven’t heard about the massive earthquake in Chile, and the fact that an earthquake of that magnitude can potentially cause a tsunami, then you probably also have no clue who Barak Obama is.

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre issued a tsunami warning for Australia’s east coast after the earthquake hit Chile.  What did some local idiots do? – they went to the beach to go and see “what a tsunami looks like”.

Some of them actually thought that sitting on higher ground would make it perfectly safe for them to sit and watch the destruction and carnage going on around them.  Some of them actually brought their kids along for the show.

Fortunately enough for them, nothing happened. 

One bloke defends himself in this manner:

Lets see:

1. The media make a beat-up about tsunami's, without researching the facts.

2. The bureau of meteorology lists the expected wave height at Southport as 0.1m.

3. People in no risk of danger enter the water and are labeled stupid.  I reaserched (sic) the danger and decided I could handle the 0.1m waved expected. I think this was irresponsible reporting of the media when there was no actual threat on the Gold Coast. Perhaps it's time to read 'The Boy who Cried Wolf'

This idiot thinks the science is so accurate as to predict waves of 0.1m.  Apparently he knows enough – he’s done “research”.  Would the sum total of that research incorporate googling it?

Where was he when the Boxing day tsunami hit?  One of the most important issues that came out during that event was that we cannot always predict nature as well as we want to. 

How many times has the weather bureau had it wrong?  If you can’t trust them for a simple temperature prediction or a rain forecast, how on earth can you trust a prediction of a 0.1m tsunami wave?  What happens if that wave turns out to be different?  The prediction may even change within an hour, and you won’t have time to respond by the time you have done some more “research” on the beach. 

The tsunami prediction system is still in it’s infancy.  Taking the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre to court after you were killed does not really bring you back.

Guess what’s going to happen next time?  There will be more idiot families who turn up for the freak show, and they will pack the beaches.  As one commentator said - “not a big loss for humanity's gene pool if a real tsunami had struck”…