Waving Bye-Bye?

It’s a Hollywood disaster flick waiting to happen: A huge and powerful wave crashes ashore, burying swimmers, lovers, skaters, cyclists, restaurants, houses, cars, theaters and liquor stores under a cold, foaming, woody, driftwood crunch and hiss.

For decades, L.A. seismologists have smiled disbelievingly at the suggestion that great tsunamis can pound our southwest-facing, island-shielded coastline. But recent geological evidence suggests such waves have hit Southern California over the last 2,000 years, and some USC civil engineers are figuring out when, where and in what size a future tsunami might materialize.

As they do the math, big-wave surfers are daydreaming about what it would take to ride such a swift and deadly wave. They’d need plenty of warning to get in position well beyond the breakers with a friend on a Jet Ski, says Chris Mauro, associate editor of San Juan Capistrano-based Surfer magazine. Paddling would not be an option. “You’d have to be towed [into the wave] if it’s going 40 [mph],” he says. “You’d want a 7-foot board. It would need a heavy glass job. A 7’-0” [three-finned] thruster.”

But why flirt, even mentally, with death? “Most of the guys who ride big waves get attached to that rush,” Mauro explains. “You never feel more alive than right after you cheat death.”