Tsunami Evacuation

Folks,

I'm writing from Puntarenas. The whole email today is about the dramatic events of Wednesday night.

The pic of the week shows some people waiting on a hilltop for the tsunami to strike.

The Alarm
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Wednesday had been a perfectly regular day. In the evening I was making my plans for the following day, as usual . I was in the casita sitting on the bed with the laptop. I had music on fairly loudly, so I didn't hear Charlie shouting for me until he was right outside. Charlie is a very jovial guy, always with a twinkle in his eye. So I was surprised when I opened the door and he burst in looking more serious than I'd ever seen him. "There's a tsunami on the way. We've got to get out. Quickly, grab your stuff and let's go. You're coming with me to Cóbano. This is not a joke." The last part was added when he saw the incredulous look on my face. For a start, in the shock of the news I confused tsunami and hurricane, and I was thinking, but there's not a breath of wind. Charlie said he'd get the van and to get up to the car park as soon as possible.

So I had to grab my stuff. But what do you grab when a tsunami is on its way? Is it life or death? Will everything be washed away? I grabbed the laptop, because that's got almost everything I need on it. I threw it in the bag. Then I ran for the door. I realised that I had money and my passport in the safe, so I ran back and got those out. Then I ran to the door again. Now I remembered my wallet with my credit card. I decided then to grab the back-up unit for the laptop, and for some reason decided to grab the laptop speakers as well. I went around turning off all the lights, until I realised how non-essential that was. When I got out I couldn't find the keys. They're always on the inside of the door, but they weren't there now. Either I'd brought them back when I went for the safe, or I'd thrown them in the bag. I tried the bag and couldn't find them. I went back inside, having to turn on all the lights again. Charlie, his wife, the people in the next house and his business partner were shouting at me from the car park. I checked around the porch. No keys. I went to go back in, and I realised I'd locked myself out. So, I just ran up to the car park. Charlie's partner, an American guy called Ryan was driving the truck, and myself, Charlie's wife, Denise, and two American girls Gillian and Andrea, who were visiting Ryan, were passengers. One of them was sobbing.

Outside in the back of the truck were the night watchman and an American guy that lives locally and his dog. Charlie was on his quad bike, and Ryan's other visitors, the boyfriends I think of Gillian and Andrea, were on another quad. Ryan was hyper and shouting 'Go, go, go'.

Evacuation
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When we started driving I asked Denise what exactly they had heard. The word was that there was a tsunami on the way following a big earthquake in Peru. It was scheduled to hit at 9pm. What time was it now, I asked, because it was too dark to see my watch. 8:30.

Charlie and Denise had received a phonecall earlier from friends in Mal País telling them that there was a tsunami warning. They assumed that given our height on the hill we were safe. A little while later the gardener, Ariel, arrived in a state of panic, and told them that the village of Santa Teresa was being evacuated, and all the hotels had been emptied. Charlie and Denise decided that we'd better go.

Since the Asian tsunami, every time I'm on the coast I look for the nearest high ground, and figure that that's where to go if one hits. It's just a habit I have. I'd always assumed that the location of the casita is totally safe, because it's high. It seemed a bit counter-intuitive to be driving down a hill with 30 minutes to go, to drive along the road at sea level a couple of kilometers through the town, possibly getting stuck in traffic while all vehicles from Mal País and Santa Teresa converged on the one mud road to Cóbano. I also regretted having both the computer and the back-up unit in the bag.

It was strange driving through Santa Teresa. Everyone was fleeing, but there was no panic. There was a truck in front with about 30 people standing in the back like cattle. But the traffic was moving. There were a lot of cars, trucks and quad bikes streaming up the hill. There were hundreds of pedestrians making the journey on foot also.

The whole journey, there was just one thing on my mind. Where were my keys? After all this, how do I tell everyone I've locked myself out?

When we got to the gas station, which is about 2km out of Santa Teresa, and on one of the highest points, there was a huge crowd of people who had decided to stay there as it was clearly safe. We decided to keep moving on to Cóbano where we could maybe get news of what was happening.

Refuge
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About another two kilometers, outside a bar called The Doghouse, we decided to stop. People had mobile phones and wanted to call home to see what was going on. There was another large crowd here. The Doghouse had started to charge 1,000 colones for entry!

There were lots of family groups together. August 15th is Mother's Day, a bank holiday here. I remember from my students that nearly everyone joins their family for this celebration.

I went off to the side, and took everything out of my bag. And sure enough I found the keys.

Denise rang her mother in the States. Her mother, at 82, is of an age where she always worries about the cost of long distance calls and tries to keep them short. Denise told her that we were evacuated and about the threat of a tsunami. Her mother replied that hadn't heard anything, but would keep her ears open, and then she attempted to hang up. 'Mom,' said Denise, 'I'm standing on a mountain here. I need to know!' She then asked to talk to her sister-in-law, who said she'd look up the internet and phone straight back.

They called back a few minutes later to say that a 8 point something earthquake had hit Peru, and there was a tsunami warning all up the Pacific coast as far as Mexico, and also in Hawaii. But there had been no word of any problems in any of the countries yet.

This made me feel that we were safe. I had felt all along that nothing was going to happen. I knew there had been a number of tsunami alerts in Asia triggered by earthquakes where nothing happened. But of course, it's better to be safe than sorry. I also felt that if it was to hit Costa Rica at 9pm, that it would have to hit Ecuador, Colombia and Panama earlier. So if nothing had happened there we were safe.

About 9.30 all the mobiles starting ringing. The all clear had been received. It was interesting that all the information we had on what was happening came from people on mobile calls to the States. Word of what was happening was related to the Tico families by American's with phones.

Back home
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And so we headed back home. Again, traffic flowed quite smoothly. Everyone was in good form. People felt better that precautions had been taken, but that everyone was safe and the danger had passed. We drove back through Santa Teresa, and it was strange to see all the shops and bars with the shutters down. It was fairly comprehensively evacuated. I was home just on 10pm, the whole thing had just taken little over an hour and a half.

And so to bed
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Little did I know as I went to bed that, for me, the worst was yet to come.

I had no problem getting to sleep, but I woke suddenly at 2.30. I didn't know why, but I was suddenly alert. Then I felt something running across my head, just over my ear. I brushed it away with my hand, and it fell onto the bed. And then in the half light I saw something dark run across the white sheet, and disappear over the side of the bed.

I had thought that I heard a fluttering when it was near my ear. So I figured it was some type of insect that had got in. I did think that it was strange that it had scuttled away over the sheets rather than flown away. I thought about turning on the light and trying to find it. But previous experience led me to believe that I would just end up waking myself completely and I wouldn't find it anyway. As I drifted off to sleep I kept thinking, I'd be much happier if I knew what that was.

At 3.40 I woke again, just as suddenly. I felt something moving. I turned in the bed, and suddenly felt this incredible sting hit my leg. It was like a combination of a bee sting and an electric shock. I shot up out of the bed, and got a second sting as I went. I ran to the bathroom, turned on the light, and looked at my leg. At first it was just all a shooting pain, but after a few minutes I could feel that there was a sting on my thigh and one just above my ankle. I didn't even know which I'd got first or second.

I went back in and looked at the bed. There was a little more light spilling from the bathroom, and I could see again a black shape against the white sheet. It looked like some type of beetle. I grabbed what is THE most important item living here, the fly swatter (come to think of it I'm amazed that wasn't what I grabbed to flee the tsunami). I took a big swipe and hit it. It lay there momentarily stunned, and I saw the full shape. Unmistakably a large black scorpion. I hit it again, this time it shot into the air and landed on the floor, still stunned, its tail curling and uncurling. But now an unmissable target on the tiled floor. I lashed at it three or four times until there was little left but the tail.

I was so shocked. I had adrenalin pumping and my leg was still throbbing. I know nothing about scorpion stings. But two on the one leg didn't seem good. I thought I might become sick from the poison. I really hadn't a clue. If I went asleep would I wake up? I took Solpadeine to be on the safe side!

After a time I calmed down. I felt ok. I shook out the sheets to check there was nothing else in the bed. I lay down. It was about an hour before I got back to sleep.

The next day I was fine. There was no lingering pain. I would have had more discomfort if it had been a mosquito bite.

And now I really have to laugh as I consider this life I've chosen to live. Where a quiet night in becomes an hour and a half fleeing a death wave on its way from Peru and followed by coming home and getting into bed with a scorpion. It's incredible that I found a little creature so much more scary than something that threatened the entire coast and caused a mass evacuation. But I'll be honest. I'd flee 100 tsunamis rather than get into bed with scorpion again.
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Well, that's it for this week. I got the ferry over today and I meet up with the Intercultura crowd for our freebie (well freebie for them) weekend. So I'm really excited to finally have an opportunity to socialise.

Until next week,

Chao,

Éamon

Thursday's Headline in La Nación: Country on 'tsunami' alert following strong earthquakes in Peru