A report from the earthquake zone….
I just got this last night from a close friend of Mrs Crusader who we attend church with. One of her co-workers has a son who works with Samaritan’s Purse (yup, we would prolly qualify as Fundies in most of your books, so get over it….) and his team is one of the last in the areas affected by the tsunami. He sent along this email describing what the latest quake was like:
Hello everyone,
Well, if you have turned on a TV then you probably know that we got some excitement last night. At about 11:10pm local time (11:10am EST) we got shaken by an 8.7 (so I’ve heard) earthquake. This marks the 5th earthquake that I’ve felt in the two months that I’ve been here (not counting the tiny little shakes we’ve had, which have been numerous). I was awaken by my bed violently shaking. I instantly knew what was happening but it took an extra
second to realize how bad it was shaking. Once got a got a grip on how bigthis was, my first reaction was, “get out of the house!” I ran to the door in the pitch black (the power went out instantly) and fumbled with the lock as I was fighting just to stay on my feet. The house was a rockin’. I ran out into the front yard, which is right on the main street heading downtown, and stood there in my boxers as the whole neighborhood was rocking back and forth. I literally had to fight to stay on my feet, it was incredible.
Once I was outside I felt pretty safe until I looked up and noticed the 10 electric cables over my head swinging like jumpropes in a double-dutch competition. I got out of the way of those and then things settled down.
I ran back in the house, got my pants on (which has now become a huge joke with everyone that I was outside in my underwear), got my rain coat, shoes, and cell phone and headed back out. By this time, which is no time at all, the town was in mass hysteria. The people here are terrified of the ocean and especially after a large earthquake.
The street became one way traffic away from the coast with people screaming and babies crying. I joined in (not the screaming and crying part though) and started walking up the road to our other office where there were some more people. That was the most
dangerous part as I almost got flattened by the hundreds of motorcycles and cars racing up the street. I got to the house to find everyone safe and mostly sound, but a little panicked. Things eventually settled down but the whole town is still on edge.
This morning someone cried wolf, or tsunami, and everyone started running away from the coast again. That’s the second time that’s happened in the past 2 weeks. The tide will come up, a few waves will come over the sea wall, and the next thing you know there is a mass exodus from the coast. We’ve basically chalked today up as a post-earthquake holiday as most everything is closed and the rain keeps coming down.
Please say a prayer for the people of Nias, an island about 250km off of our coast. They were the closest to the epicenter and have experience 11 earthquakes in the past 12 hours. Reports are scattered but there have been as many as 1000 deaths already. We are sending some assessment teams there today to see what we can do.
In closing, I’m ok, my teams ok, but the people here are quite stressed. There is still a lot of healing that needs to happen here and the tsunami is still fresh in their minds and has changed them forever.
Thanks for your emails and God Bless.
I pasted it exactly as he typed it, so forgive the grammatical and syntax errors. {What syntax trouble? I don’t see no steenkin’ syntax trouble! – ed.}
Please keep all the people in the region in your prayers. They still have a long road ahead.
Uncategorized | Crusader | 
March 30, 2005 8:21 am
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Man, the terror and horror that those poor folks are going through.
Yeah, how would it feel freaking out every time a wave crashes a bit to high?
Like they haven’t been through enough already.
I know how they feel… I still wince whenever we have a windstorm (Florida).
I lived on Phuket island for two years, also, and lost a friend in that tsunami. So my ear was glued to the news all day yesterday.