The East Coast Tsunami Threat: We cannot ignore

By Richard Murch

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people, originated along a subduction zone. So did the catastrophic 2011 Tohoku wave that obliterated entire Japanese towns and triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The Pacific Ocean's history is written in catastrophe, and that history has shaped how Americans think about their own coastlines.

The East Coast, by contrast, feels safe. And in important respects, it is safer. There is no Cascadia-equivalent subduction zone lurking beneath the Atlantic seafloor. The tectonic setting is quieter, the historical record thinner. When Americans in New York, Miami, Boston, or Charleston think about natural disasters, they think about hurricanes, nor'easters, flooding. A tsunami arriving from the open ocean is not in their mental inventory of threats.

It is not part of their emergency preparedness, not on the refrigerator list beside hurricane shutters and battery radios. For most East Coast residents, tsunami risk is something that happens to other people on other coastlines.

This perception is understandable. It is also dangerously incomplete. The scientific literature of the past two decades has quietly assembled a picture of Atlantic tsunami risk that is more complex, more serious, and more immediate than the public narrative acknowledges. The East Coast is not in constant peril. But it is not immune, and the gap between public perception and scientific reality has widened to the point where it demands attention.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H299WL3Y
• ISBN13: 9798197491893
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 217 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.5" x 8.0"