PORT ANGELES — It was something that Don Rohde had never seen in his 26 years working at Tesoro’s oil terminal on Port Angeles Harbor.
While loading a barge Friday, he turned toward the dock and noticed the vessel had risen rather than slumped into the water as it should when taking on cargo.
Then, 15 minutes later, the barge was back to where it was before.
It was clear to Rohde, the terminal’s supervisor, what was happening: Water was surging in and out of the harbor.
What took him off-guard was how quickly it changed.
“I thought it looked like a 4-foot difference,” said Rohde, 60.
The same pattern was noticed at the Port Angeles Boat Haven.
“The normal tide cycle is 24 hours,” said Doug Sandau, the Port of Port Angeles’ airport and marina manager. “Ours was occurring about every hour.”
Sandau said the pattern continued throughout the day.
Rohde and Sandau both attributed the phenomenon to the large earthquake off the coast of Japan, more than 4,000 miles away.
Shock waves from the quake first reached the North Olympic Peninsula at about 7 a.m. Friday morning, causing slight changes in wave height.
The harbor, more than 75 miles east of the Pacific Ocean, was otherwise calm that day, Rohde said.
“We knew that we might be susceptible to some of that from the tsunami that came across,” he said.
“To see it actually in person was kind of weird.”
________
Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.