January 4, 1994 Tsunami: Corea Harbor, Maine, United States

Unusual tidal bore in Corea Harbor tosses lobster cars, spins boats, Bangor Daily News, January 6, 1994. Lobster boats spun like tops. Large lobster cars flipped over or started to drift out to sea... At around noon Tuesday, fishermen in Corea noticed unusual weather conditions: Tides seemed abnormally high, winds pounded the area, and daylight seemed to dim, then brighten again. They had just experienced what Raymond Dunbar Jr. defined as a "bore tide" -- a 5- to 6-foot-high wall of water. Dunbar, who was watching the storm... said he saw the tide's effect on Bruce Crowley's boat. "It had horsed up around another one," he said. He saw the boat disappear. "By that time the tide had bore out again, and she (Crowley's boat) went down out of sight and it made me think more that she had parted her mooring." Dwight Rodgers, manager of the Corea Co-op, said Wednesday that the tidal action was spectacular. "There was a lot of water in the harbor and, as if somebody opened a drain, the water just disappeared," he said. The tidal bore created a whirlpool effect that caused some of the nearly 30 boats moored in the harbor to whip around each other. Harvey Crowley... could not believe what he saw. "Boats were all snarled up, lobster cars were out in the middle of the harbor upside down," he said... The tidal action caused one lobster car filled with lobsters to drag its two moorings. A 22-by-14-foot lobster car belonging to Dunbar's son flipped over... Lobsterman Bruce Crowley said he noticed a difference in the tide as he watched it from his home near Corea Harbor. "I saw the water all go out, just for a minute. It was up one minute and it was gone the next. It went fast," he said. Dunbar said he watched as Bruce Crowley's lobster car broke loose, headed out to sea, and then was pushed back into the harbor by a large wave. "When that lobster car came in the second time, you couldn't row a dinghy fast enough to keep up with it. That was how fast it came up with the tide. ... It was scary," he said. Babe Crowley, whose home overlooks the harbor, said the tidal surge was unlike anything he had seen in his 63 years. He estimated that the wind gusted to about 80 miles per hour... (reference #9221)

Geologist explains tidal phenomenon at Corea Harbor, Bangor Daily News, January 7, 1994. Joe Kelley, director of marine geology for the Maine Geological Survey, who is based at the University of Maine, said... "What was described in that article certainly was unusual for any area. To have water leave a harbor suddenly and then come back in suddenly as a large wave is not usual. It takes a lot of force to move water, and while there was a storm going on, that probably wasn't all of it,"... Kelley said he had ruled out several causes. He said the event was not a tidal bore because the tides were not right. He also ruled out the possibility that the event was a tsunami... Tsunamis are related to earthquakes and a call to the Weston Geophysical Observatory in Weston, Mass., Kelley said, revealed there had been no earthquake in the North Atlantic area. The U.S. Weather Service, Kelley said, had reported that just before noon, the atmospheric pressure in Providence, R.I. dropped severely... The geologist said he believed the disturbance at Corea Harbor may have been caused by methane gas escaping from the ocean's mud bottom. He said that several years ago he had explored several methane-related holes in the sea floor in Belfast Bay [Maine]... "What I think happened is a sudden change in the pressure raises the water level that loads the ocean floor, squeezes a bubble of (methane) gas which pushes water out and causes a wave to come into the harbor. The bubble breaks, and the water rushes back out to fill the void," he said. Kelly said the event apparently repeated itself several times. (reference #9220)