Waiting for the Tsunami to Hit

I didn't even feel the 7.9 earthquake. Slept right through it.

(My Mom says when I was little, I slept right through the fire alarms in the dorm where we lived.)

Or maybe the quake shook me awake enough to hear my phone ring. "Who's calling me in the middle of the night? Nick?"

By the time I found my phone on the bookshelf, it buzzed again from a text from Nick: "Earthquakes feel bigger from twelve stories up."

Underneath Nick's message from Anchorage, where he's staying at the Caption Cook Hotel for work, I read two words from the alert that woke me: Tsunami Warning.

A warning is the highest level of alert, after a watch and advisory, it means a Tsunami is already occurring or imminent.

If it was light I'd be able to see the water of Resurrection bay, a stone's throw from The Paddle Inn, our friends' house where we currently stay. We live on Lowell Point, a spit of land outside Seward, with one road to and from that snakes between the cliffs of Bear Mountain and the waves of the ocean bay.

A two mile gravel road, recently damaged during the last Super Moon, that coincided with a storm surge during high tide. Waves crashed on Nick's truck as he drove past, waves tore at the barrier rocks, waves carved out whole sections turning it into a single lane in places.

This is our road to the grocery store, to the post office, library, school, friends, the road that leads out to Third Avenue and the Seward Highway, north to Anchorage, to the airport, to my only means of visiting my Mom and Dad, my brother, and childhood friends.

"Is the Tsunami warning real?" I texted Nick, still waking up, not ready to accept that a giant wave was already traveling up to 400 miles per hour my way.

Maybe the false missile alarm in Hawaii fueled my skepticism, maybe this post-truth, false news, bamboozlement sparked my distrust, maybe I was just still too tired to want to believe the words: Tsunami Warning.

I wanted it to be a bad joke so I could get back in bed instead of fleeing for our lives.

"Not sure. Just saw it." Nick responded.

Seconds later he called. This was no drill. No spam text message.

We had to go.

Now.

My friend Audrey called as Nick and I were hanging up to make sure I'd received the alert. The Tsunami was predicted to hit Seward around 1:45 am, within the hour.

My daughter lay under the covers of my bed. "Olive, Sweetie, you have to wake up." i gently shook her shoulders. "There was an earthquake and a big wave might be coming. We have to go up top."

Up top is what we call my Cuzuncle David's property, where the broken bones of our house stand empty, but where he will always open his doors and invite us home. He lives 250 feet above Sea Level and his property is above the evacuation zone for Lowell Point.

Olive rose without protest, without fear, she climbed out of bed and followed me upstairs to wake Elias, who also rose easily and followed my directions.

No whining from my seven-year old girl, no obsessive questions from my thirteen-year-old son who experiences autism. The fact that both my kids rallied helped me keep my shit together as I put on my pants and thought about what to bring.

My dogs were already watching my every move, born ready. I grabbed my computer bag from the couch that also holds my journal, picked up my wallet and checkbook from the counter, in the bedroom I grabbed our older laptop with its tens of thousands of images of mountains, water, and our family as we played upon the ridges and shores.

Thats it.

No jewelry. No gear. No clothes. No books (though later, sleepless, I regretted leaving my current book at home.)

As we put our coats and boots on over our pajamas, me helping Elias with his socks and shoes to speed our exit, I asked: "Is there anything either of you wants to grab before we go?"

Neither child budged from the entryway--no stuffies or toys or "special" pillows that always need to travel with us on every trip--Olive shook her head no and Elias didn't respond.

My two Border Collies nosed the door, as if to tell me: Go!

We crowded into my car and drove the half mile up, past the State Park parking lot, along the start of Tonsina Trail, as the Tsunami Sirens rang out and the recorded voice told all low lying residents to go to higher ground.

As I drove, my phone buzzed with texts from friends in town offering up their homes. My friend Kim called to make sure I heard the alarms.

Before I even parked, David stood at his front door waving, porch lights ablaze.

"I'm shaking," I said, as he gave me a much needed hug the moment we walked in the door. My adrenaline untapped and flooded my body now that I knew we were safe.

David didn't seem worried; he even apologized for not having fresh cookies to share. He gathered blankets and pillows as I told the kids: "A wave can't reach us up here."

David looked for more information on his computer as I got Elias settled on the futon and Olive set up in the guest room with me.

It felt surreal that a massive wall of water was approaching the beach below. I knew we were safe up top but what would happen when the tidal wave crashed on the houses at sea level? Would the Tsunami decimate our road?

I texted Nick: 'We are up here. Missing you!!!"

He replied: "This sucks. I want to hug you. Wish I was home. No word yet."

I checked Facebook, checked the news, replied to texts, texted Nick again, checked Facebook, checked the news, texted Nick...

Nothing quite like waiting for a Tsunami to hit. Safe but worried about the carnage the wave had the potential to wreak.

Someone reported that a 35 foot wave hit Kodiak.

Was it minutes or an hour later that I learned it wasn't true? Time seemed to stall as I waited for 1:45 to roll my way, and with it a wave that could change everything.

I briefly wondered if town might have been a better choice, to stay connected to the mainland if the Tsunami destroys our road. But I felt good about my decision to drive up top, to my resourceful Cousin's abode, off the grid, with solar panels, a powerful generator, water filtered from a bog, an endless supply of firewood, a stand up freezer full of salmon and a second freezer stocked with cuts of our friend Jen's pig.

And besides this is home. Why would I leave?

David's practical calm acted as the perfect buffer to my imaginative frenzy. His reassurance allowed both my children to easily fall back asleep. If it had only been my emotional energy around them, they might have stayed wired with me, eventually cracking open in all kinds of undesirable ways.

Instead they slept peacefully as I worried. Worried wondered, and waited.

I missed Nick in so many ways and for so many reasons. He is the one who instinctively responds with grace in emergencies as I flutter or freeze. And I wanted his familiar arms around me, his blue eyes to look into mine, reminding me that we can face any challenge if we do it together.

At 1:45 I tried to listen for the sound of a wave crashing ashore.

Nothing.

No reports from Kodiak with an earlier arrival time anticipated.  No more alerts or reports.  All the government websites began with a message about the government shutdown and then went on to say that due to the importance of the information shared this site would not be affected. I wondered. I worried.

I waited.

Most of my info I gleamed from Facebook. Downtown Seward had been evacuated with folks sheltered at the high school, hanging at the Pit Bar on the road out of town, or huddled in friend's homes a hundred feet above sea level.

I learned that our local radio hosts Mike and Wolf were not only providing useful information but entertaining the folks who waited the wave out in their cars. I read countless posts saying: If anyone needs higher ground my door is open; my home is yours if you need it; anyone welcome.

And as I waited for the Tsunami to hit, I fell in love with my new community all over again.

As the East coast rose, and messages poured in from friends and family back home, I fell in love with humanity again.

This is who we are. Not democrats or republicans, not conservatives or liberals, not the clothes we wear or the items we own, but human beings who need each other, who help each other when an earthquake wakes us up in the middle of the night.

When the ground cracks, when the wind rips, when the trees blaze, when the water engulfs, we are all strands of the same rope that pulls us ashore.

The feared Tsunami never came.

Not this time.

Not yet.

"That was all just for practice?" Olive asked the next day.

"Yeah, yeah it was," I said. "They thought a real wave was coming and so they warned us so we could be safe. But it ended up being a real live chance to practice."

School began two hours late that morning and everyone I passed, in the hallways and parking lots as I walked both kids in late for their late start, in Rez Art coffee shop where I treated myself to a latte, everyone seemed to share a tired knowing smile, like we were all in this shit together.

We all spent a few crazy midnight hours expecting a tidal wave of doom, only to wake to skies that sparkled a little brighter than the day before. 

 (The beach houses of Lowell Point the afternoon after evacuating.)

Comments

[mae ann smith]

Absolutely love what you have written, expressed like a canvas with all the right palate colors for us to feel your words. Love that your writing brings us INTO your world.

[Noel G Dennehy]

So glad you guys are safe!!

[Christy]

Ah thank you Mae Ann--writing helps me process my world and I'm glad it connects to people like you:)

Noel, we dodged a major disaster and now I feel more motivated to prepare for the next one.