Tsunami

The earthquake hit at about 7 o’clock yesterday morning. I was in the bathroom getting ready for school. When the house started to rattle, my first thought was that Craig, the bus driver who lives in the house behind ours, was really cranking the bass this morning. As it got stronger, my thoughts shifted to an airplane flying low over the bay, which didn’t make sense. I stumbled out of the bathroom and looked at Steve, who was standing in the doorway of the house looking outside. “Well, I guess this is an earthquake,” I said. “Should we stand in a doorway or something?”

The quake never got very strong. It shook the house for about 30 seconds and knocked over a vase and few things off the top of the refrigerator. We watched some people stumble around a bit perplexed outside. Our neighbors’ dog trotted around the yard looking confused. One of our students strolled by unperturbed on his way to school. When it was over, I put on my uniform and headed for school. I didn’t get far before some of the teachers drove by and told me that there was no school because of the earthquake. I returned to the house and Steve and I started celebrating our day off. A little shake seemed an odd reason to cancel school, but we were looking forward to a day to relax. Then I had a thought. “I wonder if we should worry about a tsunami?”

A couple of minutes later our neighbor ran over and told us to grab our things and get up the mountain. I looked out at the bay. I saw the top of the reef rising to the surface and my heart started to race. We ran inside, grabbed a few things (laptop, camera, phone; in Steve’s case—electric toothbrush) and went outside. Our friend Marx was standing in the back of a truck yelling at us to shut the door and run. We dove into the back of the truck. The reef was completely exposed now. We raced along the seawall, Marx yelling at people to get out. When we got to the edge of town and began to drive up the hill, I looked back and saw the water rise to the top of the seawall and flow into our yard before the jungle obscured my view.

We stopped high up on the hill and I could only see the water flowing in and out of the mouth of the bay. People came up to where we were and I heard several reports about what was happening in the town. The town was ok, the damage was minimal. This tidal wave wasn’t that bad, but a larger one was imminent. Some people were crying and said the water level had risen to rooftop level and a number of old people and children who didn’t make it out of the town were dead. I walked down the hill to try to get a better look for myself. I came to a place where the jungle next to the road cleared for a few feet and looked down at the town.

I later learned there was a series of four waves that hit the southern side of the island. I think I watched the effects of the third and fourth waves on Vatia, which is on the north side. The bay sucked out until the entire reef was dry, and then the water rushed back in over the beaches and seawall. I was too high up to see how bad it was for the town, but it was clear that enough water cleared the seawall to do serious damage. Eventually the bay settled back down. No one seemed ready to go back down, though, so Steve and I walked over the hill to the next town to get supplies and see what the damage was there.

Things looked pretty bad in Afono. People said that six houses were gone—nothing but concrete slabs. The store was locked, but someone said that the owner was coming back. We sat down and waited. Eventually she showed up in a truck with a group of guys. They started grabbing loaves of bread, boxes of chips, and cases of spam, and throwing them into the truck. We asked one of the guys what was going on and he told us that they had about a thousand people on the hill between Afono and the next village, Aua. They were bringing up food because there was a warning that another wave might hit between one and three that afternoon. Steve and I bought a few bottles of water, a jar of peanut butter, a can of spam, and some Oreos, and climbed back up the hill towards Vatia. We joined everyone on top of the hill and sat down to wait.

As the day went on, we heard conflicting reports about the second tsunami. One person said the warning was cancelled. Another said that wasn’t true and we should wait before going into town. I managed to get a call through to talk to our WorldTeach director, and she confirmed the all clear. We waited a while longer because the townspeople didn’t want us to go back in, and then we walked down the hill.

The first thing that hit me was the smell. The whole town smelled like salt water. We walked past a car that had been washed into a river. Two houses near the entrance to town had collapsed. An open refrigerator lay on top of the seawall. A boat that had been sitting on the beach was up in someone’s yard. From the outside, our house looked fine. We opened the door fearing the worst, and fortunately didn’t get it. It was still daunting—there was sand and water all over the floor, and a dead fish was in the living room. The kitchen had a couple of inches of standing water in it, and my bedroom had taken on water. All in all, not too bad—nothing destroyed, just some cleaning up to do. I had some lunch and a Heineken and got ready to see how the school made out.

We went out the front door and noticed that the telephone pole that used to serve as a bench in our yard was gone. We walked down toward the school and over a shattered bridge. There weren’t any crushed houses on the west side of town, but the wave had destroyed the interiors of some and pulled furniture out through doors. Fortunately, the school was in great shape. There is a high sea wall in front of it that kept it dry. We walked around town for a while and talked to several students. A few had houses that were completely destroyed. Their demeanor was remarkable as they told me this—no defeated hands on heads or crestfallen looks. They were matter-of-fact, or even kind of laughed about it.

We cleaned up our house for a while and decided to catch a ride into town with our landlord. We heard that other volunteers in Tafuna still had running water and electricity. I also wanted to see how it looked on the south side of the island. At this point I had heard that Pago Pago was a mess. The death toll had gone up from ten to 22 as the day went on. I sat in the back of the truck and looked at the damage as we drove in. There were overturned cars and destroyed houses everywhere. We passed collapsed buildings and my landlord’s daughter told me how many people died in each. There were boats fifty feet inland. It was a surreal experience—I had never been that close to death, or seen such destruction firsthand.

The damage in the harbor was surprisingly focused. Only downtown Pago Pago was really hit hard, but it was hit harder than anywhere else on the island. I talked to other volunteers and found out that Leone, on the west side of the island, had suffered a great deal of damage. The volunteers on the east side of the island didn’t have power or water, and might not for weeks.

I’m glad that no one in Vatia was hurt, but we still have our fair share of rebuilding to do. I appreciate everyone’s concern, and will try to keep you updated on the recovery effort. I heard Obama declared this a disaster and FEMA is on its way. From what I saw in Pago, we’re going to need it.