Dock float from tsunami washes ashore
A dock float made an incredible journey across 5,000 miles of ocean from Japan to Oregon.
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Newport, Ore.
Just how the dock float — 165 tons of concrete and steel measuring 66 feet long, 19 feet wide and 7 feet high — happened to turn up on Agate Beach a mile north of Newport, Ore., was probably determined within sight of land in Japan, said Jan Hafner, a computer programmer in the University of Hawaii's International Pacific Research Center, which is tracking the 1.5 million tons of tsunami debris estimated to still be floating across the Pacific.
That's where the winds, currents and tides are most variable, due to changes in the coastline and the features of the land, even for two objects a few yards apart, he said. Once the dock float got into the ocean, it was pushed steadily by the prevailing westerly winds, and the North Pacific Current.
Credit: AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
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