Tsunamis and Salmon

Well last night was quite eventful. I was woken up from a deep sleep at around 3:30am by the wail of tsunami sirens. It took a minute for it to hit me, what the sound was but when it did, I immediately jumped out of bed and headed to the window to see car after car heading to higher ground, police sirens blaring, and loudspeakers announcing that this was not a drill and to seek higher ground immediately.

An earthquake, magnitude 7.1, had struck some 200 miles from us. If a tsunami wave occurred, it would have reached us at around 4am. Thankfully, due to the depth of the quake, no tsunami occurred. But this is the 3rd scare in the year I have lived here. The first the sirens never sounded but they were in minutes of sounding them when our warning was cancelled. This was a result of the quake in Japan. The second was when I was out of town in June, but DH was here and did not know what was happening, and now this one.

We luckily live very high up, and are actually a spot many people evacuate to. Last night we had a over a dozen carloads of people parked in our front yard. Knew all of them...that's what happens in a small town LOL.

But all of this made me think. While we are high enough and would be fine, the town infrastructure would not. If a tsunami struck, both the only gas station, grocery store, and airport on the island would be demolished. They all sit right on the Bering Sea. We would survive, but it could be days until supplies and help could reach us since we are so remote. Is it to far for helicopters to fly, especially if the other islands are similarly effected? So I guess they would have to evacuate by boat, and the boats would have to come in. Scary thought, especially when in my house we only 1 jug of water in the pantry. So today I headed to the store and bought a few more jugs and a case of bottled water as well as some canned food. I plan on picking up some more each time we go, as well as ordering some water purification tablets just in case. Never hurts to be prepared, especially when we are so remote.

I feel better now, although definitely a little more aware. A slept right through the whole thing. And thankfully DH had taken today off, so we all slept in. Didn't get up till 10, Dh made french toast for breakfast and the he headed out fishing while we did school. We spent the afternoon relaxing, cleaning the salmon he brought home, and playing. Then after dinner we headed back out to the beach and played while DH caught 3 more salmon. Our freezer is getting stocked.

I have a lot of pics to post, but tonight has been a lazy night, so I will try to get them uploaded and posted tomorrow. I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!

Comments

MamaWestWind said…
Yikes! Glad everything is well.

Becca