Latest Tide Stories

By Randal Edgar Ocean Tides school strives to provide troubled boys with a structured school and residential program that teaches skills they will need as adults. NARRAGANSETT -- Two years ago, Joshua J. Hicks was headed into a downward spiral. First he dropped out of school. Then he robbed a Laundromat with a knife. He says he faced up to eight years in prison for the robbery, but instead, the Family Court sent him to the Ocean Tides school. Yesterday, Hicks, 18, walked away from the...

MANILA (Reuters) - Heavy rains, strong winds and huge waves, boosted by the southwest monsoon, damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 shacks in the central Philippines, disaster and local officials said on Saturday. Disaster officials said nearly 60,000 people in Negros Occidental province were displaced when waves as high as 3 meters (10 feet) smashed into coastal villages. "We've never seen such waves in our entire lives," Ricardo Presbiterio, mayor of Valladolid town, told Reuters....

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - The red tide, which shut down much of the Maine coast to shellfish harvesting last year, is back. Red tide has now shut down harvesting in an area near Harpswell from Dickson Point to West Cundy Point. Shellfishermen say they hope the shutdown doesn't spread like it did last year."We're all worried," John Lyon, a clam digger, told WCSH-TV. "We don't want another year like last year."Toxic algae bloom, or red tide, infects shellfish and can make...

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas -- While Hurricane Rita struck days ago and hundreds of miles away, the storm is still creating problems on the southern tip of Texas. Rita's path left South Texas hot and dry - conditions ideal for one of the worst red tides in memory - and swells from the storm have created fears that the toxic algae could spread. "The red tide likes hot weather, it likes a certain salinity, it likes low wind," said Sonia Gallegos, a scientist at the Naval Research Lab at...

A new study of 60 beaches in Southern California suggests that water pollution varies with the lunar cycle, reaching the highest levels when tides are ebbing during the new and full moon. The findings could help beachgoers and managers better assess the potential risk of swimming. The report appears in the Aug. 1 issue of the American Chemical Society's journal Environmental Science & Technology. ACS is the world's largest scientific society.Coastal water quality is controlled by a number...

BOSTON -- The red tide that shut down shellfish beds from Maine to Buzzards Bay is fading, but scientists are worried that the toxic tide could return to coastal waters as soon as this fall. The red tide algae drops armored cysts on the ocean floor which act like seeds, bringing the tide back as many as 10 years later. But the cyst can also germinate in just a few months, said Don Anderson, a red tide expert from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod. "One of the things...

BOSTON -- One of New England's worst "red tides" in decades continued its southward expansion this week, rounding Cape Cod and forcing the closure of some of the region's most prolific shellfish beds. The toxic algae bloom began in the waters off Maine last month and spread quickly. It had already shut down shellfish beds as far north as New Hampshire. On Thursday, Massachusetts officials closed the highly productive flats of the Monomoy Natural Wildlife Refuge, off Chatham, to...

ESA -- A new ESA study predicts that the devastating Sumatran earthquake, which resulted in the tragic tsunami of December 26, 2004, will have left a "˜scar' on Earth's gravity that could be detected by a sensitive new satellite, due for launch next year. The Sumatran earthquake measured 9 on the Richter scale and caused widespread devastation and death when it struck unexpectedly late last year. Thankfully, earthquakes of this magnitude are rare events, taking place perhaps once every...

LONDON (AP) -- The chain reaction that sent enormous, deadly tidal waves crashing into the coasts of Asia and Africa on Sunday started more than six miles beneath the ocean floor off the tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Geologic plates pressing against each other slipped violently, creating a bulge on the sea bottom that could be as high as 10 yards and hundreds of miles long, one scientist said. "It's just like moving an enormous paddle at the bottom of the sea," said David...