Johnny Tsunami

Allow me to document, if only for myself:

Thursday evening, Brent and I drove into town to do our grocery shopping at Costco and Walmart. We decided it was a good time to start building up our food supply and food storage so we bought a few extra items. Turns out it was a GREAT time to stock up. Around 9pm, right as we got home, Brent received a text from a faculty member he works with telling us of a tsunami advisory. Brent immediately jumped online and started reading all he could. Within an hour or two, the advisory became a tsunami warning, everyone had heard about it, and the warning sirens all over the island started going off. The first wave was going to hit at 3:07am. The bishopric came around to all the apartments, told us to get prepared, and told the people on the first floor to come upstairs around 3. We are just far enough from the ocean to be out of the evacuation areas, but people on first floor apartments immediately began nailing boards to the bottoms of their doors, trying to guard against flooding.

We gathered together some food (all that extra stuff gave us great piece of mind), clothes and living essentials for a couple days, and filled up all our water jugs. We also thanked Heavenly Father that we had just put gas in the car. We continued to watch the news and think of anything else we might need to prepare. We invited some friends over who live off campus right next to the beach. They said that all of their neighbors were packing up trailers and heading up to higher ground. Our friends had gone to Foodland to buy food and water as soon as they heard the warning. They said the cashier lines were 45 minutes long and the gas station ran out of gasoline. They came over around 11:30pm and set up camp on our living room floor. Kind of like a sleepover; too bad we were all too nervous to make it a party. Then, we waited. After midnight, we decided to try to catch some sleep until 3am. It wasn't the most peaceful sleep I've ever had.

Around 3, Brent woke up and watched the live news feed. The first wave hadn't been too bad. The ocean had only risen one to two feet. Around 4am, we started getting calls and texts from family and friends (thank you all for your love and concern!) and Brent stayed up most the night to watch the live feed and see what happened with the subsequent waves. The tsunami sirens went off all night; about once an hour for five minutes each time.

We woke up at 7am and everything seemed to be okay. Brent said campus felt ghostly quiet on Friday. We opened up at work a few hours late in order to give all the craziness time to settle down. And to give everyone a few hours to catch up on sleep. We feel so blessed to have been protected from that catastrophe and also better prepared for the next time a tsunami warning comes. We know how it all works now. Our constant prayers are with those in Japan and everywhere else affected by the tsunami. Mo- I'm so glad your family is safe! I'm sure Friday morning was even scarier for you than it was for us. Love you all. And thanks again for your concern and prayers.