hit japan in more than 100 years. there have been dozens of after shocks one with a magnitude of 7.1. >> it's really hard to say what will happen along our coast once the water moves in this direction. we want to check in with steve paulson for what is expected what the possibilities are, steve. >> we have a tsunami warning out that goes from santa barbara to cent city. it looks like that would the closest where the highest waves would be. for us here projected time is 8:08:00 a.m. at the golden gate bridge. the good news is we're going into a low tide. waves two to four feet possible. possible. this is what happened after of japan. this is called a mega thrust. it moved away. as that water has to be displaced and has to move. as it goes over the pacifics

the ships would not notice it. it's when it moves closer toward shallow land. they get closer toward the coast. again, it will hit hawaii first and it will wrap around. it's not just one wave but it will wrap around. when that would happen it would be 3:00 a.m. our time. if it does arrive it would be around 8:08:00 a.m.. for now we go to jade hernandez. she is along the coast. >> reporter: i have to tell you we just learned a command post has been set up three minutes from here at a nearby high school. five different fire departments will converge to aid the pacific of fire department in case of possible evacuations. no evacuations have been made so far this morning. no plans have been made to evacuate. of course there are preparations being made just in case. the tsunami warning was called 45 minutes after midnight. i spoke to a couple residents

who seem to think that waves are pretty normal for the shift in tides at this point. but with a tsunami warning there is a possibility of flooding. waves are expected to crest between two and four feet. we spoke to the car load of onlookers that came here to pacifica to see the waves. they are from daly city. they heard about it through facebook and twitter. >> i'm used to see surfers come around for the mavericks and just surfing. that is about it. i don't know about a tsunami. >> reporter: we are live in pacifica along the pier this morning. we have been gauging the waves. you will hear from another daly city resident when he talks about his fears. time now 4:32. people in hawaii are bracing for a possible tsunami there

after huge quake in japan. you are looking at video from last night. shortly after tsunami sirens went off, the pacific warning center in hawaii issued a tsunami warning for hawaii and the entire pacific coast including for us here in california. the first waves are expected to hit hawaii sometime during this hour. in the philippines. >> in the philippines thousands are moving to higher grounds this morning. just hours ago they ordered evacuations of coastal communities following that huge quake in japan. the waves crashing into the beaches are expected to be at least 15 feet or higher. now the epicenter of last nights quake was 80 miles east of cindie city. i want to show you some video from inside a billing the

moment that earthquake hit. still assessing the damage this morning but a major power outage and gas leaks were reported in the city. following theet quake then we are hearing reports of 20-30- foot tsunami hitting the city port. it flooded homes and submerged the airport runway. >> seismologist in the bay area are monitoring the quake in japan. kraig debro is joining us live. what are the experts saying so far? >> basically it's a wait and see attitude right now. the waves are not expected to be huge. wait and see what they are when we get here. first they are monitoring it. i have a special connection with tokyo. my wife grew up in tokyo. we get nhk. she tells me it's not only the

tokyo subway that shut down but the jr which is our amtrak. it's a lot faster however. and the people take the jr from different regions of japan. she says that is shut down well north of tokyo to a place called tokie that is near cindie. have not heard yet from her parents. the phone lines in tokyo are spotty right now. the phone lines are spotty because the government is only using the hard line for the hard wire for emergency services. now 30 feet waves. more than 30 dozen people dead in japan. the same waves but a lot smaller are expected to hit hawaii in less than an hour. probably 30 minutes from now. in our coast less than three hours. >> the question is how big it will be when it gets here.

it could be less than a foot tall. people out on the beach might not be able to observe it. >> reporter: tsunamis are created by vertical shifts in tech tonic plates. one goes up and one goes down. on the west coast here the plates move laterally. what happens here is on the ring of fire. there is a lot of volcanic and seismic activity. we will go over to japan town in san francisco. a lot of the shops should be opening up there. a lot of the shop owners have strong connections from tokyo. it's 4:36. we want to go over to tara moriarty who is in for sal. she has information on the airports. we understand some of the airports in hawaii have closed down. what have you learned? >> because of the earthquake and tsunami warning we have

some cancellations on flights out of japan. a united flight out of tokyo were canceled after the quake struck. but there is a delta flight that will be arriving at sfo around 7:00 this morning. it left before the quake hit. once it arrives here it will not be heading back to japan. all hawaii flights are on time and not effected. back here at home let's head outdoors to marin county. 101 no problem. and in san francisco traffic on 101 also flowing well no delays. finally 680 at the sunol grade still dark out there. steve, i bet surfers will head out to the beach but not a good idea; right? probably not, yes. we do have the tsunami warning out. this just isn't the coast. it also includes the bay. it goes san pablo bay as well. the highest waves are expected at the golden gate.

it can still go being the waves. two to three hours after that. it's going to be a series of waves. low tide that's the good news. we are going into a low tide. waves expected two to four feet here expected but again if you are out around if you will ship at 600 feet you won't see anything. it's when it starts to hit the shallower land and because you get different sizes and boundaries that come ashore, you can have different wave heights. the highest is expected along cent city. again if anything does develop here, it would be around at the golden gate. we are looking for a mostly sunny day once we get past the fog. there is a lot of fog out there. 40s on your temperatures. 49 san francisco. yesterday's system did exactly what we thought. it put rain in the north bay. after that it didn't do much.

today we do have once that system maybe a few high clouds. overall it's just the fog. morning fog. it will be sunny but a little cooler today. cooler air mass in place. a little bit of a westerly breeze as well. low clouds. upper 50s and low 60s opinion i think a lot of 59 to 60, 61 should cover it today. fog and sun. there will be systems moving in toward the north. on sunday we will cloud it up. time now is 4:38. we will continue our coverage of the massive 8.9 earthquake in japan. it was followed by a huge tsunami. look at the pictures. now expected to effect hawaii and the bay area. the video from japan is just incredible. >> this is a live picture of pacifica we have a crew out there this morning. we are monitoring what is going on in hawaii which is where the waves are expected to hit

first. stay with us.

welcome back. we are looking live at 4:42. this is san francisco's ocean beach. some of the lights are emergency vehicles already out there. you can see the blinking lights of police vehicles. they are out there because of

that huge 8.9 earthquake in japan that triggered a tsunami all along the west coast and in the bay area. we don't know what is going to happen but the emergency vehicles are in place there along san francisco's ocean beach. we wanted to show you this and just showing you how we are monitoring and watching everything and are being very vigilant here in the bay area. >> we are getting reports from police in japan saying that at least 60 people dead now. 56 people missing. the damage still being assessed during that earthquake in japan. certainly those numbers are fluid. they could change at any point. these are videos from downtown. you can see a number of people outside. the earthquake hit late in the afternoon. many people at work in the

office buildings. in tokyo about 231 miles from the quakes epicenter people rushed out of the buildings and gathered in the streets. cell phone service still not working. he had realtives in tokyo. they are saying the government as they have done here they have reserved the phones for emergency of purposes. they do shut down a number of the land lines. phone service spotty. refrain from trying to get a hold of people there. time now 4:43. i want to show you another look at the flooding that is caused by that big quake. i want to show you video. look at this the water flowing in the north eastern part of japan. ther push -- the water pushing cars around like they are toys. a tsunami warning is in effect for the entire pacific coast

including california. now japan's prime minister reacted quickly to that huge earthquake. overnight he gave an update to the japanese citizens on the damage including the status of nuclear power plants. >> some of the nuclear power plants have stopped automatly- - automatically. >> now as pam mentioned earlier there has been an emergency declared at nuclear power plants. as we look at these pictures despite the reassurance from the prime minister we can see that fire was burning in the area. the fire we see off in the distance was burning in a turbine building that is separate from the nuclear plants reactor. >> we understand we have cnn carter evans. we have talked to him on the floor of the new york stock exchange. are you in hawaii right now? >> reporter: yeah i'm in hawaii

right now. let me take the phone away from my ear for a moment. listen to this. >> sounds like the sirens. >> reporter: these are the civil defense sirens going off. this is the last one we will hear probably before the tsunami strikes. i'm at the warning center. it's on the island of a what hue. i was in waikiki tonight when this struck. i group up tonight. they taught us what to do in school. the tourists had no idea what was going on. it was up to the hotel operators telling them what to do. moving them you have -- moving

them up to the sixth floor or higher. the tsunami is striking that island right now and the waves that are hit that island are pretty much in line with their predictions right about five feet high. they are saying we are sticking with our predictions. they are hitting the hawaiian islands in 15 minutes. >> as we know as you know as well certainly growing up in hawaii that the size of the waves are not necessarily as concerning as when a tsunami hits it can really move in very slowly but with such power. are you hearing about you know the potential of the waves moving? certainly the motels that are on the beach. if people move up to the sixth floor are they safe if the wall of water moves in?

>> the larger buildings can with stand that impact. the houses and cars not so much. that's why they are telling everyone to move as far in as possible. you saw the distrucktive force of these waves. the waves around 20-23 feet high. significantly higher than what we may experience here. the force of these waves is just so strong i think it's a matter of not necessarily the level of distrucktive force but how far inland it will go with a six foot wave as opposed to a 20-foot wave. with these waves moving across the open ocean the speed of which they move depends on the depth of the ocean. out in the middle of the pacific they are moving as fast as a jet airliner. when they get to shore it dispates. >> you and i worked together in

los angeles. i knew you as a surfer, as a sky diver, as a daredevil person. in the midst of all of this, did you get shaken up by all of this? what are you thinking about? >> reporter: i have to tell you i have been through several of the warnings none of them have materialized to anything. last year when i was vacationing here there was one and the tsunami that struck was one to two inches. this time it feels different. the people here at the warning center say we are sticking with our prediction. whether it will actually be as distrucktive as possibly they are predicting that remains to be seen. there was a line at every gas station. you may be thinking why do people need a full tank of gas to go inland? everything including gasoline and oil has to be shipped in. if this destroys the ports, the

shores, the pipelines, this could be a serious problem for long after the waves dispate. this is what people are preparing for not the distrucktive force of the waves but the havoc they can wreak. >> what about as a surfer we mentioned certainly we see this in florida when there was a hurricane. a lot of surfers and wind surfers head to the beach. they want to catch that action before it comes in. are they keeping people off the beaches are they trying to keep people off the water? >> yeah i have seen police driving up and down. and telling people to get out of the area. people are listening. the last distrucktive -- one of the interesting phenomenons about these we've waves is that often the fist wave is not the strongest and sometimes before you see a wave the ocean pulls

back and reseeds. it can be like that with a tsunami in 1969 that's what happened. the waves pulled back. the shores got bear. it was the second and third wave that slammed the shores that was so distrucktive and deadly. people know that that is the case. these are not surfable waves. you don't want to be in the way of this water when it comes ashore. >> so carter the streets where you are, are they filled with cars? is it quiet? is it busy out there? >> it's a ghost town. we are actually fairly below level here at the warning center. just a couple of blocks away there are houses right up against the shores. i don't see any cars parked in the driveways. it's a ghost town here. >> carter steve paulson has a

question for you. >> you're in waikiki? >> reporter: i was. >> what about over toward north shore are they more concerned there because of the north facing beach? >> reporter: yeah you got it. absolutely. the north facing beaches are likely to get more direct hit. again there is this wrap around effect. no shore would be spared when these waves come ashore. you think about a pebble as you throw it into a pond of water as it ripples around the tree stomp. that's what we will see. >> that is fantastic. carter evans thank you so much for joining us. fantastic to have you especially since you grew up there in hawaii. tremendous amount of knowledge. time now 4:52. a very distrucktive tsunami

follows the devastating earthquake in japan. >> we will continue our coverage take a look inside an office building there right as the quake was hitting. we are continuing to get updates from the area. stay with us. here is a live picture before we go. we also have our local crews down at the beaches. we just heard from hawaii but we also have crews here monitoring what is happening around our coasts. we could see some of these waves as well.

look at this video of cnn tokyo billing. tokyo is 231 miles from the quake. there have been 19 after

shocks. the biggest one magnitude 7.4. tall buildings in tokyo were still swaying 30 minutes after that quake hit. look at the pictures inside cnn newsroom there. officials in tokyo still trying to really assess the amount of the damage and the injuries. for the very latest information we want to go to the source as much as we can. we have will from the national weather service on the phone. can you hear us? caller: yes. >> thank you for joining us. what can you tell us? we are hearing the tsunami obviously devastating in japan. making its way up quickly toward hawaii and the bay area. how concerned should we be of how big the waves could be? caller: it looks like the main concern is right along the immediate coast you know tsunami's have enough emergency behind them to push water in a

ways. people along the immediate coast people should stay away from the immediate coast. >> what is your prediction at this coast. we are hearing three to four foot waves. are we going to see more intensity. what are you expecting at this point? caller: these waves are going to have very long periods and it will have a lot of energy. it will have a lot of strong currents and you know if anyone gets caught up in the water it will be a lot of danger because of the strong currents. >> all right that is will pi from the national weather service. we are looking live at pacifica

where we have a crew there this morning. we will continue to get more information about what is going on in japan right now. stay with us.

good morning, tsunami warnings blanket the pacific.