What I'm thinkin
I don't know too much bout tsunamis, but do they hit all a sudden or do they build up kinda like a hurricane?
edit: found my answer
"A hurricane is a storm in the atmosphere; a tsunami is a huge tidal wave in the ocean, caused by a large under thrusting earthquake. They are entirely different phenomena. Both have the potential to be very damaging. The thing about a tsunami that makes it worse is that, as happened in Indonesia, there is little advance warning without the proper detectors installed at sea, so the people could not escape. You usually have enough time to get out of the way of a hurricane, and get to shelter. The force of so much water is greater than that of a hurricane, but hurricanes also last longer and so can cause lots of damage also. I have never heard of a hundred thousand people dying from one hurricane, though. But - don't worry. We have a good tsunami warning system in California, in case there is any great earthquake in Alaska that causes a tsunami in our side of the Pacific Ocean, so we can get out of the way. They did not have this in Indonesia and India - and you know all about the damage, from the news reports."