It was Good Friday, 1964 in Crescent City, CA, population 3,000. Thousands of miles away, an earthquake registering 8.4 on the Richter scale was tearing through Alaska. And no one knew the quake would set off a series of tidal waves that would stretch across the Pacific & right to their back doors. Weaving together historical research with the compelling accounts of survivors, Powers re-creates the events of the fateful night when 30 city blocks were ravaged, 289 homes & bus. were damaged or destroyed, & 11 people lost their lives. This is also the story of the remarkable courage displayed by those who came together before, during, & after the tsunami to save the lives of friends & strangers -- often at the risk or even loss of their own. Photos.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Whether fishing for salmon, white-water kayaking, or wilderness hiking, my passion is with the outdoors. My love for the sea dates back to waterskiing in the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey (when growing up) and sailing in regattas. When I headed to the West Coast after my education, I bodysurfed from the California coast to Hawaii.
Early on, my librarian mother would bring home her favorite books for me to read, and I found new worlds of adventures and different civilizations. From selling shirts to hauling lumber, I worked at different jobs to earn my education. I received a BA from the University of Colorado, a J.D. from the University of Denver Law School (J.D.), and then an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. While working for large corporations in the financial fields, I dreamed about adventure and writing books. I finally took the plunge by moving to Santa Barbara, California, and later forming a law practice'all to have the time to write. I started writing poetry, newspaper and magazine articles, fiction, and nonfiction works, earning my keep during the day while writing at night.
Deciding that teaching would give me more time to write, I joined the faculty in 1995 at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, and taught business law. My first books were in the financial and legal fields, as I learned the publishing world. In 1999, the publisher selected my non-fiction work, THE OFFICE ROMANCE, to be that year's lead book and I headed out on a national book tour.
But my love has always been with the sea, and I continued researching maritime subjects. In 2005, my book THE RAGING SEA, about the 1964 devastating tsunami that crashed down the U.S. West Coast, was published. My next book TREASURE SHIP came out one year later, which describes the search and final locating, over 125-years later, of a long-lost, gold-bearing, steamship. SENTINEL OF THE SEAS, which is about the most dangerous, expensive, and remote lighthouse built in this country, came about in 2007. Next, TAKING THE Sea--or a book about the old-time wreckers, or salvagers, using the experiences of one of the most talked about, Captain T.P.H. Whitelaw--was brought out. In 2010, I was very pleased that my book, TALES OF THE SEVEN SEAS: THE ESCAPADES OF CAPTAIN DYNAMITE JOHNNY O'BRIEN--was published. This book reaches through the life of a very charismatic sea captain of old to show what traveling was really like over the oceans of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For more on these books, see WWW.DENNISPOWERSBOOKS.COM.
My interest in the sea is more than about the ocean's awesome power, effects, and maritime history. It is about common folks like all of us who are forced to reach to uncommon levels of courage in order to survive and under challenges that most find daunting. It is also about the times those people lived--and about life over the seaven seas.
