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>Is there a reason why the marinas down there are built so flimsy? Even
our club dinghy dock is made of concrete floats with concrete pilings.
Based on the sorts of damage I'm seeing in the photos, I'm not sure our
marina, which has a huge breakwater of giant boulders and most floats
and pilings made of concrete, would fare much better. The explanations
I've read of the storm surge makes it apparent that this, plus the waves
themselves that come ashore or enter a bay or channel, are more damaging
than the wind alone. While our marina has floating docks, a 15 foot
storm surge, particularly on top of a high tide, could lift the floats
high enough to come off their positioning piles. And I can only guess
what a concrete float would do if it started careening around among the
boats and other floats.
If the issue was just the wind, I suspect our marina would do okay. The
breakwater is big and high enough to block wind waves off the bay.
Remember, Puget Sound marinas are way inland from the actual Pacific--
we get some pretty dramatic wind waves on occasion but we don't have
ocean swells and waves that have traveled hundreds or thousands of miles
to contend with. We've experienced sustained 70 mph winds once since
we've had a boat in our marina, and while it shredded a few opened
bimini covers and bent their frames like pretzels, there was no other
damage. But a severe water rise along with hurricane-force winds would
I'm sure be a different story. Fortunately this is not a problem we're
likely to have. On the other hand, we have fault lines running through
the area as well as a dormant volcano (Mt. Baker) only 50 miles away or
so. As NOAA and the University of Washington Seismology Lab keep
telling us, it's not a matter of "if," it's a matter of "when."
______________________________
C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington
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