"Tsunami Warning! Immediately move to higher ground!" The voice over the loudspeaker sounded like it was from world war 11 at some concentration camp.
I shot straight out of bed and looked out the window. No fire truck. What is going on?
The siren continued to blare. My wife raced to her cell phone.
"We have a tsunami coming at us! We have to get out NOW!" She encouraged. "Matt said to come to his parents house up on the mountain."
The siren is blaring and the metal voice keeps demanding all to run for the higher ground.
Our condo sits right on the ocean. Great views, easy access to town, but also right in the path of any tsunami wave.
What do you save out of your house when you think all you don't carry out in a couple minutes will be lost forever?
I am thinking of survival. I grab my hunting rifle which sits loaded from a hunt a day ago. We are trying to get dressed, get our two dogs up, and then grab everything of importance, all the time the crazy insane siren is blaring and the voice demanding everyone to run for their lives.
I grab survival food for the us and the dogs as my wife gets our important paperwork and passports.
I race down to the truck and fire it up to defrost the nights snow. We are facing three inches of new snow from yesterday. It is going to be slick and cold.
We are on our phones to our daughter telling her where we are going and to meet us there.
We load the dogs into the truck and join the bumper to bumper chain of cars making their way along the ocean front to the roads climbing the mountain above us.
I opt for a road that is fairly steep but a short route to the house we are heading for. I turn up the hill to see a car stuck mid way up, flashers blinking their warnings. A truck is spinning sideways around the stuck car, but finally obtains grip and makes it around the car.
I easily crawl around the stuck car looking at almost panic in the occupants faces. "Do we stop and help them?" I ask my wife.
We don't want to leave anyone behind but figure they are high enough to be out of danger and can leave the car and walk further up the hill to one of the many houses above.
Lines of cars are packed on the road outside Matt's folks house. I squeeze in between two and up into the driveway. I am idling the engine to build heat in the truck for the dogs when Matt taps on the window.
"Made it!" he states the obvious. "You can put dogs in garage if you want, then come inside."
"I think the dogs will be fine for a while once I get the truck warmed up. They can snuggle for warmth if needed," I reply.
I open the door and almost run into our daughter walking up the drive. "The car is stuck down the hill," she informs me.
" Is it in danger zone?" I ask, knowing Slater will be trying to get it free and up the hill. "I'll run down and help if needed," I tell her.
"No. It is just a block away. He is trying to park it in a driveway now."
We shuffle into the house and join Matt's family and several other families.
The waiting game has begun.
For the next two hours we sit listening to a radio and the relentless blaring sirens and the voice of doom telling all to evacuate to higher ground.
The earthquake a 7.9 was centered in the ocean about 200 miles Southeast of Kodiak Island. We pull up our charts on our Ipads to see that puts the quake straight out from Sitka. There would be no land mass to block the rushing water headed our way. If the tsunami did hit it would be brutal to our little town of ocean front buildings and homes.
Kodiak would be hit first. At around 2:30 a.m. the Kodiak harbormaster post online that water is receding out of the harbor... not good at all.
Anyone who has watched the tragedies on the news of other tsunamis knows the first is receding water followed by the rush of incoming which races until it overflows ocean boundaries and wipes out everything in its path.
We are glued to radio and mobile devices.
"Kodiak had declared that only a three foot surge was observed," Matt informs us. "Looks like we may not get washed away tonight."
At 3:30 in the morning the siren stops it wailing and chimes the theme of star wars.... danger is over. We can all return home.
Like the big city ball games we wait for the traffic to clear a bit then work our way down the slick road to the stuck car. We wait until our daughter is back on the road and then follow them down the hill. Matt is right behind us making sure we all get out.
Home looks very good as we walk in the door. The dogs are wound up knowing something happened tonight out of the ordinary. I unload the truck and pack it up the stairs as my wife puts it away.
It is after 4:00 a.m. when we make it back to bed. I am restless hearing the blaring sirens and the metal voice echo in my mind.
We talk about what we managed to grab for the run and what we could have added to help out.
We are grateful for caring friends and for family who looked out for each other this night. We are grateful to be able to come to a standing house, warm and comfortable, and not a pile of wet tangled rubble.
Thank the Good Lord for keeping us all safe this night.
cars lined up along the road at top of hill
waiting out the tsunami warning at 3:00 a.m.
