San Diego tsunami: possible but not likely

By Gary Robbins
Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:12 p.m.

If you’re in the ocean, get out. If you’re heading there, turn around. There’s a tsunami on the way.

Police and lifeguards hustled early Friday to warn the public to stay high and dry after one of the biggest earthquakes in history -- an 8.9 planet-ringer --spawned a tsunami off Japan.

Scientists say it was the smart response to a threat that actually was never really much of a threat. A damaging tsunami is plausible. But San Diego has never been hit by one.

And for reasons of geology and geography, it isn’t likely to happen soon.

“We are in a different tectonic region than Japan or Cascadia (Pacific Northwest) or Indonesia,â€