Tsunami risk for Florida and Cuba with worst case scenarios of 4.5 to 9.5 meter high waves

Tsunami risk for Florida and Cuba with worst case scenarios of 4.5 to 9.5 meter high waves (VIDEO)

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Submarine slope failures are a likely cause for tsunami generation along the East Coast of the United States.

Numerical models of past events reveal possible tsunami impact on Bimini, the Florida Keys, and northern Cuba due to submarine landslides and margin collapses of Bahamian platforms.

Models show tsunami risk for Florida and Cuba via University of Miami

Tsunamis caused by slope failures with terminal landslide velocity of 20 ms−1 will either dissipate while traveling through the Straits of Florida, or generate a maximum wave of 1.5 m at the Florida coast.
Modeling a worst-case scenario with a calculated terminal landslide velocity generates a wave of 4.5 m height.
The modeled margin collapse in southwestern Great Bahama Bank potentially has a high impact on northern Cuba, with wave heights between 3.3 to 9.5 m depending on the collapse velocity.
The short distance and travel time from the source areas to densely populated coastal areas would make the Florida Keys and Miami vulnerable to such low-probability but high-impact events.
More scientific information about the tsunami threat in the published paper.