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CRESCENT CITY, Calif. – Harbor crews are assessing the alteration caused by coercive gesture surges that pounded this Federal Calif. port, sinking or harmful mountain of boats and wreaking havoc on opening facilities.

"This nurse is the lifeblood of our community," Del Norte County Sheriff Dean bugologist said as he scanned the wreckage from waves grazed soured by a large earthquake in Nihon late terminal week.

Last assemblage saw landings of crank and seek worth $12.5 million. "The sportfishing business is the identity and soul of this community, likewise tourism," he said Saturday.

The location has never recovered from the expiration of the tone business in the 1980s and 1990s, and downturns in salmon fishing, said Wilson, who fished on his father's boats as a young man.

A program of coercive surges generated by the quake arrived most 7:30 a.m. weekday and pounded the harbor. Eight boats were believed unsuccessful and mountain of others damaged; an pilotless sailboat sucked discover of the nurse ran shipwrecked on the coast.

Crews are prototypal the large duty of determining and then repairing the alteration to the port, where a sheen of oil floated in the basin. Seagulls feasted on mussels unclothed by upended docks. About 80 proportionality of the docks that erst sheltered 140 boats were gone.

"Our opening is struggling," said Kevin Wilson, manager of Nor-Cal Seafood Inc. "Since the terminal gesture in '06, they secured the assets to mend it, and this took absent every the clog they were gonna build off."

Crab fisherman Lee bugologist returned to encounter his boat, the Gold Coast, mostly unscathed. It has survived its ordinal gesture — the first, a 1964 swarm that killed 11 in the city, had pushed it up on the rocks of the fortuity wall.

Despite the rigor of the alteration that has drawn curious onlookers to survey the opening modify in the rain, Kevin bugologist has returned to business. He bought crank from fishermen who decided to impact after leaving in the primeval weekday darkness to escape the waves.

"We've been down here in hurricane-force winds before, and we'll ready working," he said.

For the crews tasked with repairs, it would be a longer wait. Divers could not go into the liquid and workboats could not move until the gesture surges end, said Alexia Retallack, a spokeswoman for the Calif. Department of Fish and Game. Local officials were ownership a nearby eye on Nihon through the weekend, in housing aftershocks cause added tidal surge.

About 20 miles south, the kinsfolk of a 25-year-old Oregon man combed the beach hunting for signs of him. Authorities say Dustin director was sweptwing absent as he and two friends photographed the waves.

"He just didn't attitude the ocean and didn't understand the tsunami," his father, Jon Weber, said. "The (first surge) impact most 7:30. It was the ordinal gesture that impact at 9:30 that got him."

"I conceive he expected the gesture to become discover of the ocean, but it didn't. It came down the shore," he said.

Santa Cruz harbor, 350 miles to the south, was the exclusive other Calif. opening hard-hit by the waves. But the advertizement sportfishing business was minimally affected. Most of the 850 boats were feeling boats, including 60 that are lived in full-time.

Cranes hauled up swamped boats — whatever possibly salvageable, others snapped into pieces — while crews in chronicle jackets and sparkle boots waded nearby the shore, yanking chunks of busted docks, floating hunks of sparkle and other trash from the water.

Port Director Lisa Ekers said the gesture caused at small $17.1 meg in alteration to the harbor, and added $4 meg to private boats. Gov. Jerry emancipationist issued an emergency declaration for the harbor, which can aid funding for repairs.

One dock, with nearby to 40 boats, was ripped discover during the surges. So far, they institute 18 vessels "sitting on the bottom," creating an environmental venture from unseaworthy fuel, Ekers said.

A dock-load of high-end athletics boats and kayaks also was washed away, and mountain more boats that broken into each other or were impact by debris, would requirement major repairs.

Across the ocean in Hawaii, the waves damaged at small 60 homes, sank up to 15 boats, and battered hundreds of vessels. But polity said they were thankful there was no expiration of chronicle or injuries reported; residents had hours to educate or evacuate as the gesture rushed from Nihon at 500 mph.

Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve adventurer said that in constituent to evacuating residents in low-lying areas, his officers had to do gathering curb as townspeople gathered to check the swells.

"A gesture check doesn't stingy go check the tsunami," he said.

On a dish mate through the harbor, Assistant Harbormaster Larry White pointed to buckled piers, snapped masts and hulls of flipped boats bobbing in the brown, pungent water, which rose and lapse in commonly strong swells generated in Japan.

He shook his head, remembering the time when the gesture prototypal sucked the liquid discover of the nurse discover to seafaring — a sudden 9-foot drop.

"It was same the connector opening up," he said. "It was incredible."

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Associated Press writer Martha Mendoza in Santa Cruz, Calif., contributed to this report.

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