1). The number of deaths in japan alone would indicate the surge was much stronger. I don't remember the sea water moving six miles inland and wiping entire towns off the map.
Waveland was pretty much wiped off the map; though it has come back to some extent. But it is true that impact in terms of deaths was smaller because it's a different type of situation. There is more opportunity for warning and evacuation with a hurricane. If it had been a situation where nobody suspected anything was going on...we didn't have our hurricane warning and projection systems...and that hurricane hit like it did the death toll on the Mississippi coast would've been astronomical.
It was a different phenomenon. More sustained. And it did move well inland. If you go to the report on the storm at
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL122005_Katrina.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; you can find this statement on page 9:
"The surge appears to have penetrated at least six miles inland in many portions of coastal Mississippi and up to 12 miles inland along bays and rivers. The surge crossed Interstate 10 in many locations."
Again, this bears upon something I mentioned: New Orleans was the focus of the media. But the coast of Mississippi was much harder hit.
The other thing is that it wasn't just a few waves like a tusnami is. It was hours and hours of extended high wave action. The waves out on the ocean reached around 50 feet and, again, it wasn't just a few waves. And there were numerous tornados.
But you're right in the sense of human life impact because there isn't as much warning with a tsunami; especially when the Earthquake epi center was pretty close to Japan.
On the other hand, what this thread started about is the idea of looting, etc., due to the destruction. The destruction along the Mississippi coast was really catostrophic. I went and looked at it shortly after the landfall and it was just scoured and flattened. But they really didn't have a big problem with criminal activity. They pulled together.
