Tsunami Watch Passed

Following the Solomon Islands earthquake, I hustled home, only to get stuck in traffic on the coast road, as work crews were trying to clear a landslide and debris that had partially covered the road during the heavy rains of the previous day. After a 45 minute delay I got through the bottleneck and made my way home, to where Sara had been spending her sick day.

We had about an hour and a half before the waves were supposed to hit American Samoa, so we packed the car with water, canned goods and other essentials. Then we made plans to meet a few friends at the hotel/restaurant/bar higher up in the Tafuna Plain.

Right as we pulled into the parking lot we got the news that the tsunami watch had been cancelled, as the waves were only 3-feet high when they passed through New Caledonia. Still we decided to use the evening at the hotel and celebrate our friend's birthday, as we were already there. So after three hours of slow service and enduring a menu that was out of most things we could eat; we'd celebrated a birthday dinner with as much use caution as we could given during the hours the tsunami would have purportedly struck.

The key is not letting ourselves ignore these disaster warnings. We don't want to get in a boy who cried wolf situation and get in trouble when one does strike our island hard.