Deadly ’64 tsunami did a lot of damage in Oregon

On the evening of March 23, 1964, Seaside resident Margaret Gammon hadn’t been asleep more than an hour or two when she was awakened by howling. It was the community fire siren, blaring at full blast without stopping. She looked at the clock. It was 11:30 p.m. “I lay in bed thinking to myself, ‘Why doesn’t that fellow at the fire station get his big thumb off the siren button so we can all go back to sleep, and let the firemen take care of the fire?’” she recalled later, in an article for Oregon Historical Quarterly. “In just a few seconds the cars started zipping up our street toward the highway like the devil himself was on their tail. I thought it must be a tremendous fire, so I figured I’d get dressed and go watch it.” It didn’t take long for Gammon to learn that it wasn’t a fire. It was a tsunami — and it was almost upon her. (Oregon Coast; 1960s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/22-06.tsunami-1964-610.html)