Customer Reviews

The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of the Worst Tsunami in U.S. History

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REVIEW UPDATE MARCH 12, 2011 Watching the heartbreaking reports eminating from the East Coast of Japan one cannot help but be dumbfounded by the awesome power of Mother Nature and the fragility of our existence on this planet. Being from the East Coast I simply cannot fathom the sheer terror of being caught up in a tsunami. Sure, we have powerful hurricanes to deal with on a fairly regular basis but in most cases people have plenty of advance notice and time to evacuate or make adequate preparations. This was certainly not the case yesterday in Japan or for the good people of Crescent City, California on the evening of March 27, 1964.

In "The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of The Worst Tsunami in U.S. History" author Dennis Powers has done a workmanlike job of recreating the events of that horrible and heartbreaking night nearly four decades ago. You will come to understand just what forces in nature bring about these killer waves. Knowing little or nothing about tsunamis I was stunned to learn that an earthquake in Alaska could set in motion natural forces that would ultimately wreak death and destruction all along the West Coast on that fateful night. The residents of Crescent City and numerous other coastal towns had virtually no time to prepare. And they were really quite unaware of the dangers they were facing. Dennis Powers tells this remarkable story through the words of many of those who lived through it. It is compelling reading.

Once the seas finally began to recede and sunrise approached residents would come to realize the magnitude of the destruction. In downtown Crescent City there was practically nothing left. Eleven people had lost their lives and dozens more were injured. Virtually every building had been destroyed, roads were impassable and phone and electric service were non-existent. The smell of rotting fish was everywhere. Crescent City had endured the brunt of the tsunami and the community would face the monumental task of cleaning up and rebuilding after this disaster. Survivors could not help but wonder if their lives would ever be the same again. And now sad to say it has happened once again. Initial reports indicate that eight foot waves from the Japan tsunami have destroyed much of Crescent City harbor and most if not all of its crab fishing fleet has been lost. Furthermore, at least 4 people were swept into the sea and one is feared dead.

Given the events of the past 24 hours there is likely to be renewed interest in "The Raging Sea". From what I have been able to gather this book is currently out of print but copies can still be had at various booksellers online. They are likely to be snapped up quickly. Author Dennis M Powers has written several books about the sea and maintains his own website [...] You might want to check it out. Perhaps he will now consider publishing a revised edition of this book. Personally, I found "The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of The Worst Tsunami in U.S. History" to be an engaging and well written book. Dennis Powers certainly managed to hold my attention from cover to cover. Highly recommended.

Dennis Powers' account of the 1964 tsunami's destruction of Crescent City, CA is a mostly straightforward chronicle of events and narratives. The author focuses on the surprise element of this disaster, both in its arrival and in the scope of the devastation. He touches on many heroic and heartbreaking stories of the residents who experienced it. The transformation of the nature of Crescent City and its inhabitants, however, emerges as the central theme of this work. Some of the problems unique to this disaster remind me of similar occurrences, thus making this material more applicable or relatable. Those include problems with false alarms, as well as the problem of residents reentering potentially hazardous areas. These occurrences can be compared and contrasted with those of the World Trade Centers on 9-11 and the collapse of the levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
This is a very readable narrative, full of engrossing stories of the death and destruction wrought by the tsunami. Powers' description of the events of Good Friday, 1964 is compelling viewed as history, human interest, or heroic drama. With interest in tsunamis and other calamities high, this book is a relevant addition to the literature of the genre.

I will never visit the sea again without remembering this book. Dennis Powers is a compelling story-teller. This is a riveting drama of the ultimate disaster, and of the ordinary folks in a small town who performed extraordinary feats of heroism.
This one makes stories about shark attacks pale in comparison.

On Good Friday of 1964, when I was 11 years old, Alaska experienced an earthquake that sent whole neighborhoods sliding toward the ocean. I remember seeing those pictures in Life magazine, very well indeed; but I have only the fuzziest recollection that something also happened on that date in Crescent City, California. That "something" was the worst tsunami in history to strike a U.S. city. The series of waves, four major ones (although the sea went on with its back-and-forth surging for hours after the last major wave struck), was set in motion off Alaska. The warning that a tsunami might strike the West Coast of the "lower 48" failed to reach most of Crescent City's residents, and those who did hear it remembered other warnings when little or nothing happened afterward. Especially, some of them remembered a 1957 evacuation of their city that turned out to have been a needless precaution. So when the first wave arrived at midnight, Crescent City's people were doing what they always did on a Friday night. Partying in bars, watching television at home, or sleeping. Farther up the coast, two off duty Air Force men were fishing from a sand bar at a river's mouth. A family with four small children lay sleeping in a driftwood shelter on a beach, where the state park ranger tried unsuccessfully to find and evacuate them when the warning reached him.

The first two waves did plenty of damage at Crescent City. After both had receded, even the authorities thought the disaster was over; so they allowed business owners and residents back into the waterfront area the waves had devastated, to start cleaning up and to protect property from looters. That's how Gary Clawson and his fiancee happened to be at the Long Branch Bar with Gary's parents, and with friends who were also his parents' employees, when the third and fourth waves arrived. By dawn, all but two of those people would die - and it would happen far away from the Long Branch, after a moment when safety appeared to lie within everyone's grasp.

Gary Clawson's is just one of the stories author Powers recounts in this powerful book, which represents years of research into an event that changed a city forever. Like the law professor he is, Powers places everything in context; the reader comes away understanding not only what happened, but why it had the effects (both immediate and far reaching) that it did. Except for occasional awkwardness in word choice and sentence structure, an excellent piece of work that combines human interest with growing relevance in a world where the next "big one" is not a matter of if it will happen, but when.

I found the following very positive review by the widely respected publication, Publishers Weekly, about The Raging Sea to be helpful--and not misleading as one review does way below. Publishers Weekly states: "It's (The Raging Sea) a gripping narrative: lawyer and amateur tsunami scholar Powers describes how, in 1964, four successive waves spawned by an Alaskan earthquake struck Crescent City, Calif., a lumber and fishing town near the Oregon border, flooding the low-lying areas and killing 11 people (four children also drowned on the beach to the north). Broadcast warnings came too late to be useful, but earlier, less destructive waves raised an alarm that prompted many people to head for high ground before the later, more damaging onslaughts. Powers interviewed survivors whose stories read like good action fiction, such as septuagenarian Mable Martin's memories of surviving the night trapped in her ruined house. Less fortunate was Air Force Sgt. Don McClure, who saved a friend at the cost of his own life, or Gary Clawson, who saw his fiancée and half his family drown when raging waters capsized a boat in which they were trying to escape blazing oil tanks. Powers points out the town never quite recovered from the destruction wrought by the tsunami, although this was in part due to the decline of the fishing and logging industries. This is a very readable narrative, and interest in tsunamis is no doubt at an all-time high."

I was planning to read the book over the spring break. However, after reading "Bill Saville's" review, I was tempted to read the first few pages. I could not put the book down after that.

It is hard to imagine that this disastrous event happened over 40 years ago. Dennis Powers captured and presented the stories of those who experienced and lived through the destructive Tsunami that hit Crescent City so detailed and so vividly that I felt as if I were in the middle of it. The book does not only provide an excellent historical account of this event, but it also presents a very informative perspective on Tsunamis. Most of all, the book highlights a positive side to calamities - that they bring out the best in human beings, both those directly affected by them and not.

In 1964 the town of Crescent City on the northern California coast was hit by a major tsunami created by an earthquake in Alaska. Scores of homes and businesses in the downtown area were destroyed, and 11 people died. Four children died on the Oregon coast at Beverly Beach State Park, as a result of the same tsunami. Dennis M. Powers' recent book, The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of the Worst Tsunami in U.S. History, is a remarkable full-length, in-depth account of this disaster and its effects on the town and the lives of its residents.

Powers spent 15 years researching and writing The Raging Sea. The result is a book with substantial and clear information on the dynamics of tsunamis and the technology of tsunami warning systems. But the gripping and tragic personal stories of this particular disaster are the real focus of the book.

Powers follows dozens of people who were in Crescent City on the night the tsunami struck: those who escaped to higher ground immediately, who were caught by surprise and narrowly escaped the raging waters, and who fought for their lives but ultimately perished.

The most compelling parts of the book revolve around Gary Clawson, his family and friends, and their struggle to survive. Powers makes time stand still as they battle the elements. The suspense kept me turning page after page way into the night to find out who would live and who would die. The attention to detail made me feel as if I knew these people, and I were with them in the midst of the tsunami, surrounded by the damage, death, and destruction.

Powers goes on to describe the aftermath: the shattered lives, the devastation, the reconstruction of the town. He ends by discussing what the future may hold for those living in tsunami-prone areas. As haunting as the story he has just finished telling are the last lines of the book: "A `big one' will happen again, and it unfortunately will be worse than Crescent City's experience then. The only question is when - and who will suffer this time."

The background, the detail, the big picture, the personal stories, the intricate descriptions, its all here set against the backdrop of the worst tsunami to ever devastate the West coast of the United States. Take the powerful event of a devastating tsunami and combine it with the author's compelling writing style and you have a book that is hard to put down. I am writing this review on Good Friday 41 years after the Good Friday tsunami caused by the 1964 Alaska earthquake so thoroughly described in Powers' book. As I write, the wind is pulsing through the barren trees and the sky has clouded over. I quiver just a little as I think back to those events of 41 years ago brought so graphically to life by Dennis Powers. This book will get your blood flowing and give you a new appreciation for the power of the ocean and Mother Nature.

Dennis Powers presented extraordinary stories within this book which sent my imagination into overdrive. It brought to mind a
long ago experience of having found myself scuba diving at 60 feet underwater when an earthquake (which occurred in Alaska) caused great turbulence in the water in Medocino , California some hours later. I was far more fortunate than some of the people in his book. Reading the superbly-written accounts of the Crescent City tsunami made me much more aware of the repercussions of delayed action. It was a quick read but left me with a great sense of the amazing humanity which can travel with such a natural disaster despite the toll on human life. I really enjoyed this book.

I found the Publisher's Weekly review of The Raging Sea to be very accurate (see the review by DL for most of that review). I enjoyed the blending of information about the why and how of tsunamis with the stories of the individuals involved. I felt that Dr. Powers did an excellent job of demonstrating the variety of reactions to the physical and emotional difficulties presented in this situation. The inclusion of a number of pictures as well as the inundation map was very helpful. Overall, I very much enjoyed this fast-paced and timely book.