HONOLULU—
A senior geologist tracking a tsunami expected to hit Hawaii says the first waves hitting shore are smaller than expected.
But Gerard Fryer of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said Saturday night that the first waves are usually not the biggest for tsunamis in Hawaii. He says it could be as long as seven hours before the warning is canceled if waves get bigger.
The National Weather Service says there are reports of water quickly receding in bays, including Hilo Bay on the Big Island.
Tsunami waves are stronger and different from normal beach waves. Fryer says 3-foot tsunami waves would be strong enough to flood two blocks in from shore and destroy property at ground level.
The warning comes after a magnitude-7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Canada.
Earlier Saturday, emergency officials urged people along Hawaii's coasts to move to higher ground, and officials in North America downgraded a tsunami warning to an advisory for southern Alaska and British Columbia. They also issued an advisory for areas of northern California and southern Oregon.
A small tsunami was barely noticeable in Craig, Alaska, where the first wave or surge was recorded Saturday night.
The wave or surge was recorded at 4 inches, much smaller than forecast, said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit in the Queen Charlotte Islands area, followed by a 5.8-magnitude aftershock several minutes later. The quake was felt in Craig and other southeast Alaska communities, but Zidek said there were no immediate reports of damage.
The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for coastal areas of southeast Alaska, down the western Canadian coast to the tip of Vancouver Island.
Later Saturday evening, the warning for those areas was downgraded to an advisory, while a warning was issued for Hawaii.
Local television stations in Hawaii were running live news updates and warning tourists to check with hotels.
At first, officials said the islands weren't in any danger of a tsunami, but they later issued a warning, saying there had been a change in sea readings.
In addition, officials issued an advisory for areas from Gualala Point, Calif., about 80 miles northwest of San Francisco, to the Douglas-Lane county line in Oregon, about 10 miles southwest of Florence.
A tsunami warning means an area is likely to be hit by a wave, while an advisory means there may be strong currents, but that widespread inundation is not expected to occur.
Lucy Jones, a USGS seismologist, said the earthquake likely would not generate a large tsunami.
"This isn't that big of an earthquake on tsunami scales," she said. "The really big tsunamis are usually up in the high 8s and 9s."
She said the earthquake occurred along a "fairly long" fault - "a plate 200 kilometers long" in a subduction zone, where one plate slips underneath another. Such quakes lift the sea floor and tend to cause tsunamis, she said.
In Craig, officials implemented an emergency plan, and took fire trucks, ambulances and heavy equipment to higher ground.
"If nothing else it was a good exercise in determining how well our disaster plan works. I thought it came off quite well, really," he said.
Watson said he did receive calls from townspeople about the tsunami.
"There's supposed to be a big Halloween party downtown. People are calling, `Did the wave hit yet so we can go to the party?"' he said.
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