Laz

I lived extremely close to the beach, back then Glenelg wasn't the over touristy beach it is today, infact I remember as a kid waiting for some tidal wave to hit( I was 9) , it was predicted, let me see if I can find it on google LOL

I learnt how to swim in the ocean, fish from a jetty and wore a peeling nose from the sun 5 months of the year.
Found a news paper clipping of the event if you are still reading lol, oh and a picture of where we lived, my primary school and the my beach.

REX JORY
November 01, 2006 02:15am
IT was one of the sillier things I've done. On a windy January Monday in 1976, I joined 2000 people at Glenelg.

We faced the sea and waited to be swamped, indeed obliterated, by a tidal wave.

We knew, of course, that nothing would happen.

But Melbourne housepainter John Nash predicted the catastrophe after he had a dream that much of Adelaide would be wiped out by an earthquake and tidal wave at noon on January 19, 1976.

His prediction became rumour which swept the city. The rumour became an inevitable fact.

People sold beachfront properties for bargain prices. Occupancy at foreshore hotels and motels dropped to 25 per cent. Staff absenteeism doubled.

Hundreds of people, particularly of Greek and Italian backgrounds, fled inland as far as the Riverland, their cars loaded with personal possessions, to avoid the ocean-generated holocaust.

One couple arrived in the Renmark with a goldfish in a bowl.

At Barmera, the caravan park had the "full'' sign out and turned dozens of people away.

The BBC sent a television crew to Glenelg from London to record the predicted catastrophe.
Media from across Australia were there. A Sydney radio station did its regular morning show from Adelaide to record the Big Wave.

At Glenelg, the mood of the crowd was somewhere between hysteria and hilarity.

No one seriously believed there would be a tidal wave, but it was sort of fun to be there just in case.

On the beach, a brisk sea breeze whipped up flopping waves big enough to topple a toddler but too small to tempt even a novice surfer.

The Premier, Don Dunstan, mingled with the crowd, assuring people nothing would happen.
Some of the true believers wore flippers and goggles. A few carried surfboards.

One man came in a dinner suit, saying he wanted to die in style.

As midday approached, Mr Dunstan appeared on the balcony of the Pier Hotel and told the crowd
we had nothing to fear. There would be no disaster.

He drew a great cheer when he said Mr Nash, who made the prediction, would not be welcome in Adelaide again.

But we were ready to cheer anything.

At midday there was a bit of a count down, 4000 eyes looked to sea and as history didn't need to record, nothing happened.

We knew there would be no tidal wave.

But we went, nevertheless.

Within minutes, laughing toddlers were again scampering from the flopping waves. The crowd filtered into restaurants and bars.

The following morning ,The Advertiser in an admonishing editorial said: "Hopefully, the lesson we should all have learnt from yesterday's pathetic anticlimax is to rely more on our common sense and less on the silly and unscientific speculation of self-appointed soothsayers.''

Perhaps. But, in an odd way, I'm glad I was there.