I looked up the technical term for what he was describing, and it is called shoaling. As it enters shallower water, the wave slows down and the wavelength decreases, causing the wave height to increase dramatically. This is because the wave's energy becomes concentrated in a smaller volume of water.

The islands are like poles jutting up from the ocean floor. The tectonic plates that lead to the coast are hundreds of miles on which the waves can gather more water and power. Wild that he still knows and wants to talk about this at 86.

He told me that tsunamis are more dangerous when they are headed toward land, so the West coast was going to potentially in more danger than Hawaii, because of the giant shelf on which it had to pick up power coming toward the coast.

And also, they almost forgot to give me my drink (somewhat understandably)