Topline:
You may have seen a tsunami hit San Francisco the action film "San Andreas." Today's big off-shore quake had us wondering again: what would it be like in reality?
Why now: A late morning 7.0 magnitude quake in Northern California generated a wide-ranging tsunami warning for coastal California. While no tsunami was generated, it got a lot of people thinking.
Keep reading... for a look at what non-movie science tells us about the real-life risks.
In light of the tsunami advisory issued Tuesday, July 29, following an 8.8 magnitude quake in Russia, we're resurfacing a 2017 story from our partner newsroom KQED in San Francisco.
In 2015, Steven Horowitz was watching one of the summer’s big blockbuster action flicks, San Andreas. In the movie, the San Andreas fault shifts, triggering a magnitude 9.6 earthquake in San Francisco. Disaster ensues — and for the rest of the movie we watch as all of the West Coast’s greatest landmarks are destroyed one by one in an epic, computer-generated spectacle.
“I was sitting there watching the giant tsunami course through the Golden Gate and into the bay,” he says. “I looked at that and thought: Wouldn’t there be some kind of dissipation coming through the Golden Gate?”
In 2017, he asked KQED's Bay Curious: If a tsunami were to hit the Golden Gate, what would be its real effect on communities facing the San Francisco Bay?
Despite the terrifying image of a 250-foot wave about to wash over the Golden Gate Bridge, tsunamis do not actually pose a considerable threat to the Bay Area.
It all has to do with the kinds of geologic faults that we have (and don’t have).
Tsunamis are caused when one tectonic plate slides underneath another — a process called subduction. This slow movement is happening all the time, but sometimes a plate will get stuck and pressure starts to build. When it finally lets go, there’s an underwater earthquake that can move the seafloor up and down, sending a wave to the surface of the ocean.
But the San Andreas Fault is different. It’s called a slip-strike fault because the two plates slide past each other horizontally. Of course, whenever plates move, the ground shakes. But here, there is no subduction and little displaced ocean.
Meaning no killer tsunamis. Even San Francisco’s infamous 1906 earthquake generated only a 4-inch wave at the Presidio gauge station.
Although they aren’t generated here, tsunamis do occasionally hit our shores. Since 1854, more than 71 tsunamis have been recorded in San Francisco Bay. Most were generated by earthquakes in subduction zones near Russia, Japan or Alaska.
Eric Geist, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, says that size is the most important factor in evaluating risk.
“We can look at anything, from huge waves to micro-tsunamis, that you’d never see with your eyes but our instruments can detect,” he says.
The worst tsunami to hit the Bay Area was triggered in 1964 by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake in Alaska, Geist says, that killed 11 people in Crescent City. That wave rolled in at just under 4 feet and damaged marinas and private boats in Marin County.
The infamous 2011 tsunami that devastated parts of Japan also arrived in the East Bay 10 ten hours later at just over a foot in height, and caused millions of dollars of damage in Crescent City.
The Cascadia subduction zone, which runs roughly from Mendocino County to Vancouver Island, could also produce a massive earthquake and tsunami. But Geist says it’s unclear how a tsunami from “The Really Big One” would affect the Bay Area.
“Oregon, Washington and California north of Eureka would really bear the brunt of that tsunami,” he explains.
Although it’s unlikely, Steven Ward, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, has created a series of animations to show how a big tsunami might spread through San Francisco Bay.
In Ward’s simulations, the incoming wave stands just over 16 feet tall. This is much larger than historical tsunamis, but Geist agrees that a wave this size is theoretically possible.
Approaching the Golden Gate at 55 mph, the wave would first hit the outlying areas of Point Reyes National Seashore and Montara. It would then start to flood low-lying areas like Half Moon Bay.
“It’s not like splash and dash,” explains Ward. “When the water comes in, it’s going to flood.”
It would feel like a 12-hour tidal cycle was packed into an hour.
“And it will do as much damage when it goes back out and drags along cars and debris,” he adds.
The original wave and splashbacks from shore would then start to pile up as they squeeze through the 1-mile-wide Golden Gate. In Ward’s simulations, the wave reaches a maximum height of about 30 feet.
“That’s barely to the top the pylon,” says Ward, who is confident that the bridge would have no trouble withstanding the wave energy. “It probably wouldn’t even touch the steel.”
Finally, the wave would fan out into San Francisco Bay. Parts of Crissy Field, Mission Bay and the Marina could see significant flooding, but by the time it reached Treasure Island or the East Bay, the wave would be less than 3 feet tall. It would probably not even make it to the South Bay.
Inundation maps for coastal counties are a great resource for understanding how high ocean waters could rise near you. Here’s San Francisco.
Steven Horowitz, who asked Bay Curious the question, was glad to hear that the tsunami would be nothing like the movie.
“By the time it gets to Berkeley, which is where I’m sitting right now, I think I’m pretty safe,” he says. “Sounds like it’s not going to come rushing up University Avenue.”
Bay Area residents can also rest assured that there have been no recorded deaths from tsunami-related events in San Francisco. And even a worst-case-scenario Cascadia tsunami would take several hours to reach the city, providing ample time to mobilize a response.
And just in case, the City and County of San Francisco has a tsunami plan in place. It includes a strategy for evacuating people from vulnerable areas like Ocean Beach, coordinating basic services (like shelter, water, food, and medical attention) and performing search and rescue.
Still, “if you get a warning and are in a tsunami zone, follow the evacuation instructions,” says Ward. “What do you have to lose, a couple hours of your time?”
Topline:
The Food and Drug Administration intends to get tougher on vaccine approvals, as top officials raised concerns about the risk of COVID vaccines for children.
Why now: Speaking on Fox News Saturday morning, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said the agency would no longer "rubber-stamp new products that don't work," claiming it made a "mockery of science."
Background: Makary's comments came the day after FDA's top vaccine regulator, Dr. Vinay Prasad, told his team the agency would change its annual flu vaccine framework, update vaccine labels to be "honest," and make other changes to how it reviews vaccines, according to contents of an internal email reviewed by NPR and reported on first by a PBS News Hour correspondent and later by The Washington Post.
The Food and Drug Administration intends to get tougher on vaccine approvals, as top officials raised concerns about the risk of COVID vaccines for children.
Speaking on Fox News Saturday morning, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said the agency would no longer "rubber-stamp new products that don't work," claiming it made a "mockery of science."
Makary's comments came the day after FDA's top vaccine regulator, Dr. Vinay Prasad, told his team the agency would change its annual flu vaccine framework, update vaccine labels to be "honest," and make other changes to how it reviews vaccines, according to contents of an internal email reviewed by NPR and reported on first by a PBS News Hour correspondent and later by The Washington Post.
Prasad wrote that the FDA would also no longer authorize vaccines for pregnant women without stricter requirements. And for pneumonia vaccines, manufacturers will have to prove they reduce disease rather than show they generate antibodies. He also raised questions about giving multiple vaccines at the same time, which is standard practice.
The changes could make it much more difficult and expensive for vaccines to get approved, further limiting the availability of vaccines, which are considered among the safest and most effective tools for protecting people against infectious diseases.
While all vaccines carry some risks, most public health experts argue the current process for vetting vaccines before marketing has long assured that the benefits of vaccines outweigh their risks. Studies required after vaccines are approved and surveillance systems, including the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), also flag potential safety issues once vaccines are in use.
Makary said on Fox News that 10 children had died from the COVID shot during the Biden administration, but did not offer specifics about how the FDA came to that conclusion. Millions of children have received the vaccine.
Officials with the Department of Health and Human Services and Food and Drug Administration didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on the COVID analysis and changes to vaccine review standards.
According to the FDA email from Prasad, he told the agency's biostatistics and pharmacovigilance team to analyze 96 reported deaths from 2021 to 2024, and they determined 10 children died "after and because of" the COVID vaccine. But Prasad said the true number was likely higher.
Dr. Paul Offit, who directs the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said in a text message that Prasad has not shared the evidence that these vaccines killed 10 children.
"Because he doesn't provide any evidence, he is asking us to trust him on an important issue," Office said. "All this will do is scare people unnecessarily. At the very least, he should provide all the evidence he has so that experts in the field can review it and decide whether he has enough data to prove his point."
Dr. Jesse Goodman, a professor at Georgetown University who held Prasad's job at FDA from 2003 until 2009, said in an email that the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccine approval, has been "recognized globally as a gold standard regulator." Goodman defended "immunologic endpoints like antibody levels" for the accelerated approval of pneumonia and influenza vaccines. He said science supports their use and they are confirmed with studies after approval: "These approaches have helped provide children and adults with timely access to safe and effective vaccines, saving many lives."
Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, reviewed the email from Prasad and challenged his statement that "COVID-19 was never highly lethal for children." Osterholm also questioned the FDA's latest analysis of adverse event reports attributing the 10 deaths to COVID vaccines.
"Prasad's email is filled with factual mistakes and misrepresents both the severity of COVID in children (1597 deaths in 2020-2022) and how the US responded to the first signals of possible vaccine-associated pediatric deaths in May 2021," Osterholm wrote in an email to NPR.
"While Prasad's email notes 10 such deaths, these cases have never been presented for review by the medical and public health communities or published in the medical literature," Osterholm continued. "Given the record of this Administration to misrepresent scientific data regarding vaccines, until these cases have been reviewed by an expert third party, like the National Academy of Science[s], we can not accept the fact they are vaccine-associated deaths."
The FDA makes public data from the VAERS surveillance system co-sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the FDA cautions, "it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause and effect relationship has been established." In his email, Prasad wrote that "with case reports, causality is typically assessed on a subjective scale. In this scale ranging from certain to unlikely — certain, possible/likely, and probable are broadly considered as related to the product."
Makary said on Fox News that when the COVID shot was first rolled out, it was "amazing" for people at high risk of coming down with severe disease, but things have changed.
"Back in 2020, we saw a reduction in the severity of illness and lives saved, but now recommending that a 6-year-old girl get another 70 million COVID shots — one each year for the rest of her life — is not based on science. And so we're not going to just rubber stamp approvals without seeing some scientific evidence."
The claim is the latest move by Trump administration health officials questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and how the government has regulated them. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long questioned vaccines.
The FDA restricted eligibility for the updated COVID vaccines in August after announcing the agency planned to require more evidence about the shots' safety and effectiveness going forward.
The FDA email on vaccine policy comes just before the CDC convenes a crucial two-day meeting of that agency's influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Dec. 4-5. The committee is in the process of conducting a major review of how children are inoculated against dangerous infectious diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, polio and hepatitis B.
Many public health experts are concerned the committee will upend the childhood vaccination schedule. It could move to delay the timing of some inoculations, space out vaccinations and call for the reformulation of some vaccines. Taken together, the moves could result in fewer children getting protected and the resurgence of once-vanquished diseases.
Asked about Makary and Prasad's claims that the COVID vaccine caused deaths among 10 children, Moderna, whose COVID vaccine is approved for children as young as 6 months old, pointed to a statement it made in September. The company says that multiple published, peer-reviewed studies from a variety of sources show its shot is safe and that it is "not aware of any deaths in the last year or pertinent new information from prior years."
Moderna says it monitors its vaccine's safety along with regulators in more than 90 countries. "With more than one billion doses distributed globally, these systems — including in national health systems across Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the U.S. — have not reported any new or undisclosed safety concerns in children or in pregnant women."
Pfizer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Copyright 2025 NPR
Topline:
The Trump administration’s sudden freeze on all visa and asylum decisions for Afghan immigrants has left many of them in Orange County — one of the country's largest hubs for Afghans — in limbo. Local groups are preparing to support the immigrants even as they await clarification from federal authorities.
Why it matters: California is home to the nation’s largest concentration of Afghan immigrants, many of them now grappling with the Trump administration’s abrupt visa and asylum freeze.
Read on ... to learn more about the Afghan population in Orange County and guidance from one O.C. immigration official on what could come next.
California is home to the nation’s largest concentration of Afghan immigrants, many of them now grappling with the Trump administration’s abrupt visa and asylum freeze.
Friday’s announcement by the White House followed the fatal shooting of a National Guard member in Washington, D.C. a couple days earlier by a suspect who had immigrated from Afghanistan.
In Orange County, where many Afghans have settled as their immigration applications pend, local officials are gearing up to help them navigate the change, even as guidance is scant from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Jose Serrano, director of Orange County's Office of Refugee and Immigrant Services, said the goal is to provide the “most up-to-date information so they can continue on towards their pathway towards citizenship here in the United States.”
“The Afghan population in Southern California, specifically in Orange County, is one that is really important to the DNA of who we are,” Serrano said. “Let's continue to stay together and strong and reimagine a place for belonging for everyone.”
As they await more information, Serrano advised visa and asylum seekers to:
Nearly 200,000 Afghans are in the U.S., with 39% of them residing in California, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Hundreds of Afghan households have settled in Orange County, Serrano said, making it one of the state’s hubs for Afghan immigrants alongside San Diego and Sacramento.
Serrano said a big draw for immigrants to Orange County is Little Arabia in Anaheim, a regional destination for Middle Eastern food, culture and community life.
Serrano, who spent more than a decade working with immigrants at World Relief Southern California and the state's refugee programs bureau, said entering Afghan homes means being offered large meals. One family had prepared a whole feast for a Time Warner cable worker, he recalled.
“They didn't understand why that person couldn’t stay to dine with them,” he said. “That’s the type of people that are here in Orange County, folks who are so committed to being a part of civic engagement, to connecting alongside other communities.”
Serrano said many of the Afghans who resettled in the county are Special Immigrant Visa holders, a program created for Afghan nationals who helped the U.S. government during the war in their home country.
That program has now been frozen by the State Department.
Serrano said immigrants who entered the U.S. as refugees and have since become green card holders could see their cases reopened.
Joseph Edlow, who leads USCIS, said the new immigration measures will last until “we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”
For Serrano, the current screening process is rigorous and involves multiple organizations aside from USCIS, such as the U.S. Department of Justice, the F.B.I. and counterterrorist organizations.
Applicants undergo health screenings and multiple fingerprinting appointments, he said.
“They're constantly doing an assessment to verify that you are a good-standing citizen,” Serrano said. “One of the things that I think we should be very proud of within the United States is that there is an in-depth screening process for anyone who is seeking a protection.”
Topline:
Four people were killed and 10 wounded in a shooting during a family gathering at a banquet hall in Stockton, sheriff's officials said Saturday.
Details: The victims included both children and adults, said Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the San Joaquin County sheriff's office.
What's next: Early indications "suggest this may have been a targeted incident," Brent said during a news conference at the scene. Local officials said the suspected shooter has not been caught and pleaded with the public for help. Detectives were still working to identify a possible motive.
STOCKTON, Calif. — Four people were killed and 10 wounded in a shooting during a family gathering at a banquet hall in Stockton, sheriff's officials said Saturday.
The victims included both children and adults, said Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the San Joaquin County sheriff's office. Early indications "suggest this may have been a targeted incident," Brent said during a news conference at the scene.
Local officials said the suspected shooter has not been caught and pleaded with the public for help. Detectives were still working to identify a possible motive.
"If you have any information as to this individual, reach out immediately. If you are this individual, turn yourself in immediately," San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas said during a news conference.
The shooting occurred just before 6 p.m. inside the banquet hall, which shares a parking lot with other businesses. Stockton is a city of 320,000 about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Sacramento.
"Families should be together instead of at the hospital, standing next to their loved one, praying that they survive," Mayor Christina Fugazzi said.
Authorities did not immediately provide additional information about the conditions of the victims. Officials said earlier that several were taken to hospitals.
Copyright 2025 NPR
Topline:
The Stahl House, otherwise known as Case Study House #22, is on the market for the first time in its 65-year history.
Why it matters: The midcentury modern home in the Hollywood Hills has come to embody the postwar Los Angeles good life. It is also one of the most recognizable examples of West Coast modernism.
Why now: The house has been with the same family since its completion. But after caring for it for more than 6 decades, the Stahl children are looking for the house's next steward.
Read on... For the fascinating history of the Stahl House. Find out why its original moniker is Case Study House #22, and see the photographs that have made the hilltop home a revered landmark.
A quintessential piece of Los Angeles history — a jaw-dropping midcentury modern house of glass, steel and seemingly all skies soaring high above the Hollywood Hills — is up for sale.
Asking price: $25 million.
The Stahl House, otherwise known as Case Study House #22, has stayed with the same family since it was built in 1960.
"After 65 years, our family has made the heartfelt and very difficult decision to place the Stahl House on the market," wrote the Stahl children, Bruce Stahl and Shari Stahl Gronwald.
The 2,200-square-foot home at 1635 Woods Drive has been preserved meticulously, funded in part by proceeds from open-house tours of the space.
"This home has been the center of our lives for decades, but as we’ve gotten older, it has become increasingly challenging to care for it with the attention and energy it so richly deserves," the Stahl children continued.
And they are not just looking for a buyer — but a steward.
"It is a passing of responsibility," the listing for the house reads. "A search for the next custodian who will honor the house's history, respect its architectural purity, and ensure its preservation for generations to come."
The futuristic house, with its stunning panorama and a swimming pool perched at the edge of nothingness, has become one of the most recognizable and prized expressions of midcentury modern architecture in L.A. How it came to be built was fueled by a similar spirit of experimentation and audacity.
In 1945, the cutting-edge Arts & Architecture magazine launched the "Case Study House" program to commission the era's biggest and most boundary-pushing architects — Richard Neutra, Charles Eames and the like — to design and build affordable, scalable homes for an exploding middle class after World War II.
"Each house must be capable of duplication and in no sense be an 'individual' performance," editor John Entenza wrote in the announcement-slash-manifesto.
By its terminus in 1966, the program gave rise to 36 designs, of which 25 prototypes were built — mostly in and around the city — forging L.A. into an epicenter of West Coast modernism.
One of them was Case Study Home #22 by Pierre Koenig, who, as an architecture student at USC in the early 1950s, was already making a name for himself, particularly for his use of steel.
His student work caught the attention of Entenza, who later invited him to join the Case Study House program.
The Hollywood Hills home would be Koenig's second Case Study house — and his most well-known.
The story began with Hughes Aircraft purchasing agent and former football player Buck Stahl and his wife, Carlotta, who bought a small hillside lot overlooking the city for $13,500.
The couple spent weekends putting up a wall around the property using broken concrete sourced from construction sites. Buck, the Stahl family said, had built a model of his dream house to take to architects — many of whom turned the job down because the lot was seen as undevelopable.
Enter Koenig, who signed on for the challenge in 1957. A month before construction began in 1959, the project was christened Case Study House #22. The Stahl House was completed a year later, according to the Los Angeles Times, at a cost of nearly $38,000.
With its sleek lines and inviting airiness, Case Study House #22 has come to embody the good life in postwar Los Angeles, an idea reinforced by its countless appearances in movies, TV shows and magazine spreads over the decades.
But the photographs that started it all — elevating the home into the stuff of mythology — were taken by Julius Shulman. He was tapped to document the entire Arts & Architecture program after charting an unlikely career photographing modernist architecture in L.A., starting with those designed by Neutra.
Shulman shot the Stahl House in May 1960, shortly after its completion. In the most iconic shot of the series, two young women in white party dresses are sitting in the glass living room, conversing leisurely as the house dissolves into the shimmering sprawl below.
"It was not an architectural quote-unquote 'photograph,'" said Shulman about the image in an interview for the Archives of American Art. "It is a picture of a mood.”
