Tidal Wave a Washout but It Draws Thousands Down to the Sea to See

Every time the warning goes out that a killer tidal wave may be on the way, thousands flee from the sea, but other thousands rush to the shore to see the tsunami for themselves.

It happened again up and down the Pacific Coast Wednesday, after a warning that a tsunami was headed this way, launched by an Aleutian Islands earthquake.

As it turned out, the big wave made only a small splash. A spokesman for the Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said scientists there do not know why the wave petered out before striking the mainland. The wavefront was very weak to begin with, however, and some scientists have speculated that heavy storms and winds in the area weakened it further.

But even so, half of the 3,000 citizens of Crescent City left town--and with good reason. Eleven persons were killed there in 1964, when another Alaskan quake spawned a huge wave that nearly wiped out the Northern California seaside community.

It’s easy to understand that reaction.

But why the opposite reaction?

Why, as in Southern California, did hundreds, maybe thousands, flock to the beaches, piers and seaside restaurants to wait and watch for the tsunami that never came?

Canadian tourist Hank Westland of Windsor, Ontario, was one of the crowd on the Santa Monica Pier Wednesday night, and he had a straightforward explanation: “I want to see a big one. Eight to 10 feet would be nice.”

On Thursday, Southland psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts pondered the “whys” and came up with their own, somewhat deeper thoughts on the subject.

Psychologist Gary Emery said the phenomenon wasn’t too difficult to understand.

“The people (who rush to a possible disaster scene) are motivated by thrill or novelty seeking to avoid boredom,” he said. “They want to live a little dangerously, like running the bulls in Spain. There is an inborn need to have danger that modern society doesn’t give us.”

Another factor, he said, is “ignorance and self-deception,” the thought that there must not be any real danger, because so many others also are on the scene.

David Wellisch, associate professor of medical psychology at the UCLA Medical School, said there is a technical term for the phenomenon: “reaction formation.”

“When people are afraid of something, they do something to react against it,” he said. “People are afraid of things that are destructive, powerful. And it (going to the beach to encounter a tsunami) is a reaction against that fear, by putting yourself into it, you meet the fear head-on. . . . And also in a crazy kind of way, there is an identification with the power of the tsunami . . . in seeing it, you are kind of involved with it, and the power becomes part of you.”

Consulting psychiatrist Paul Logan said it has a lot to do with American culture and the way we are raised.

“We are brought up in an illogical fashion, in general, in this country. . . . When something like this comes up . . . we don’t deal with the real world. We’re stupid and crazy, not rational and logical.”

There is, he said, a tendency to “believe . . . one, it really won’t happen, and two, if it does happen, I will survive, it’ll happen to somebody else.”

“First, it has to be understood, that with different people, there are different motives,” psychoanalyst Ivan Gabor said. “I think the common motive (in this instance) is that this is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and they want to be able to share it, tell about it .”

He agreed with Logan’s “it-won’t-happen-to-me” idea.

“It is being close to danger, without the belief that you’ll be hurt. . . . It will hurt others, but never me. . . . Then there is the pleasure of being close to danger, the rush of adrenaline. It is pleasurable to have the chemicals that are released by danger. It is like being in love--anything that is dangerous.”

Gabor thought sea myths also may have something to do with it.

Sea Monster

“In everybody,” he said, “there is an unconscious myth of the sea, the sea monster, most spectacular, that rises out of the sea, the dark, the unknowable sea. Tsunami. Even the name suggests that.”

Whatever the interpretation, some tsunami-seekers were mighty disappointed when the big splash failed to show.

“I’m really bummed,” said 23-year-old Billy Huskey, among a crowd of 200 at the Santa Monica Pier. “I was hoping it would be a big one--20 feet or so, where it would get us all wet.”

But not everyone went to the shore in hopes of seeing the tsunami that never was.

“We’re here to buy drugs, actually,” said another Santa Monica Pier visitor, a miniskirted 19-year-old. “ What’s coming? A giant salami?”

Times staff writers Thomas Maugh and William Overend contributed to this story.