tsunami

"Alright don't worry
even if things end up a bit too heavy,
we'll all float on.
Alright. Already.
We'll all float on"

Modest Mouse is the only way to survive a non-tsunami event in Oregon.

So (IRONY) that's the exact part of the song that was playing when I turned my car on to drive to work after being awoken at dawn by my editor telling me: "I need you to come into work right now. There's a tsunami warning. This isn't a drill."

Given that for the massive waterfront fire in December, he said (after waking me from a dead sleep in the middle of the night), "Hey, hope I'm not catching you at a bad time. I heard there might be a bit of a fire at the pier. Could you just go take a peek?" I figured we were all going to die. This was It. The Tsunami. The one city and county consultants have been telling us dourly for years, "The question is not IF but WHEN."

It sounds silly now, yes, given that NOTHING HAPPENED to Oregon (except in Brookings, my goodness), but for 15 minutes, while pulling on my jeans and hunting for my car keys and driving to the office, I was a little frightened. I realized I had no emergency preparedness. Not no how anywhere. I tried to be rational. I checked the fridge and the cupboards. Nope, no canned goods. I would have to rely on the local raccoon population to sustain me. What to do what to do... I grabbed my checkbook and my social security card and then, on a flash of inspiration, filled every mason jar I own with water.

Then I got to the office and they told me we're only going to get, at most, four foot waves.

Oh good.

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So nothing happened here in C County, but awful things happened in Japan. I read a story today where the prime minister (Naoto Kan, born in 1946) called it the worst crisis since World War II. They're estimating over 10,000 dead. Can you even wrap your mind around that number? You can't. I just tried. I can't either.