UPDATE: No Major Problems as Coast Braces for Possible Tsunami

Updated at 12:50 p.m. Friday with a U.S. Coast Guard statement about oil drilling operations:

The ocean water level along the Los Angeles County coast dropped about 18 inches below normal low-tide levels this morning, as coastline residents were . And the Port of Long Beach suspended the loading of hazardous materials, although other port operations were unaffected. 

The U.S. Coast Guard reported being in contact since last night with the oil drilling platforms along the coast and that none have reported damage. "We suspended all hazardous material transfers in the local ports since early this morning as a precaution.  I don't think as of right now we've allowed those operations to get back underway," said Petty Officer First Class Adam T. Eggers, a Coast Guard spokesman, on Friday afternoon.

Authorities had advised people to stay out of the water and off the beaches, although some people went there anyway to check out the action--or lack thereof. Though the National Weather Service issue a Tsunami Advisory and the City of Long Beach issued one, as well, that said it was closing beaches and marinas, sailboats could be observed inside and outside the Long Beach breakwater at the time when the first tidal effects of the tsunami were expected to arrive Friday morning. And, as usual on a sunny day, there were bicyclists, runners and walkers on Belmont Shore beaches, and by the afternoon, kite boarders. 

In Seal Beach, about  at by 9 a.m. to watch for the tsunami, according to a fire authority estimate. 

No major problems were initially reported, but harbor masters and lifeguards were watching for tidal surges that were observed as far south as Ventura Harbor.

"Absolutely nothing has happened," said Sgt. Rick Petty of the Marina del Rey sheriff's station. "We've observed a one foot surge so far, but it did not knock anything loose."

"The first waves have already come in, but there could be more sloshing that will come along," said USGS seismologist Lucy Jones at a midmorning news conference in Pasadena. She warned that additional earthquake-caused oscillations in water height, causing possible damage, were more likely this afternoon in Southern California.

"We are moving toward high tide, which would increase the likelihood of damage," she said.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's patrol boat and a Baywatch boat were patrolling the harbor at Malibu, the region's largest recreational harbor, as a precaution, and King Harbor in Redondo Beach, already beset by a calamitous fish die-off, did not suffer any tsunami damage either, a spokesman there said.

The Japanese quake caused a 6.5 foot tsunami at Crescent City, about 800 miles north of Los Angeles, and 6 feet high at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant near Morro Bay, Jones said.

In the Santa Monica Bay, the regular daily low tide was anticipated at 8:08 a.m., which coincidentally was almost the exact predicted time of the arrival of the first ebbs and flows caused by the magnitude 8.9 earthquake some 7,900 miles away.

At Zuma Beach, the tide did not begin to come in, but appeared to recede further. By 9 a.m., a strip of sandy ocean bottom about an additional 10- 15 feet of sandy ocean floor was exposed. (See time-lapse photos of Long Beach's Rainbow Harbor, just outside of the Aquarium of the Pacific, during the time of the tsunami's tidal effects at http://yfrog.com/gzbl9dj.)

Residents of the Zuma Beach area stood in sunny weather, and watched an apparently normal scene. They had tracked the tidal level with pieces of kelp stuck in the sand. "Nothing. We were hoping to see the water rising a little, but there's nothing," said Trancas resident Heikki Ketola. Mike Kappas stood in the Zuma Beach parking lot and said, "It's been pretty calm here.

"Fortunately it doesn't look like we are going to have any problems here, but I feel sorry for those people in Japan," said the Malibu resident.

City News Service contributed to this report.