Something similar happened in Adelaide in the 70s, someone predicted a tsunami along the coast, in the end the Premier of the day went down to the Glenelg Jetty to supposedly hold the waters back!
I won 3 $50 Booktopia vouchers through Foxtel and only received one order but as they were freebies it didn't matter. Booktopia always gave the impression the books were in stock so it wasn't until a couple of weeks later that it became obvious they weren't!