Scheduling surfing competitions is often subject to nature, and this week a storm in the Pacific was expected to send mammoth waves to Hawaii's Waimea Bay, conditions necessary to contest the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau, one of surfing's most prestigious events.
But for people -- who mark the calendar in days and months rather than eons -- a monumental catastrophe had begun, not only the largest earthquake in 40 years but also the displacement of billions of tons of water, unleashing a series of mammoth waves: a tsunami.
It became America's first blockbuster exhibit, and set off a wave of "mammoth fever".
Lucy Walker's documentary "The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom" begins with indelible images of the mammoth March 11 wave, unfolding as a kind of slow-motion disaster that is almost more than the eye can take in.
They hope to capitalize on a wave of consolidation that has resulted in two mammoth media deals this year.
Although some observers believe that data collection, especially in the Internet age, has been overemphasized at the expense of analysis, computer technology and the application of artificial intelligence, which allow computer programs to organize mammoth amounts of raw material for analysts, promise to make the tidal wave of information manageable.
Use of the risk intelligence database is linked to a growing wave of bank account closures and blocked transactions, as banks increasingly "de-risk" their operations to avoid mammoth US Treasury fines.
That mammoth debt, put Americans back to work, financed industrial production, underwrote a new generation of science and technology and created a wave of demand for consumer goods when the war ended.
The entire uniformed manpower of Egypt's mammoth Ministry of Interior, amounting to perhaps a million policemen, vanished from the country's streets.Exactly as in Tunisia, their suspiciously complete exit sparked a wave of looting, vandalism and banditry.
Wave after wave of attack.
