Together Again - Buildup to a disaster

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  • longbow

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    3   0   0
    Apr 2, 2008
    6,900
    63
    south central IN
    Copyright, Longbow Entertainment a Division of Upland Hills

    It was tough listening to the radio. Reports were coming in, one by one of waves hitting coastlines, islands and South East Asian nations and communications dropping off. The smart ones got on a boat, but the fast moving waves at sea were still 10 to 20 feet high in deep waters and much higher in the shallows.

    We fired up the generator and got a TV, Dish and the freezer powered up. Fox and CNN and ABC were showing waves much larger than what hit Japan rolling in and covering up the islands and coasts. Several areas that people thought were high ground with thousands of people were covered over with the swells and washed clean. Soon after a larger wave rolled in and the high ground was gone. My youngest guessed the hills were at least 150 feet high and they offered no protection.

    The video they all were playing over and over again was a rescue helicopter taking off from the high hill on an island with 4 or 5 people hanging on the skids. Hundreds were left behind, just as the top of the hill was swamped, and the entire island was gone. You could tell the helicopter was overloaded and starting to go down. One door opened and someone with a pistol shot the people hanging on the skids. The helicopter started to rise again and the news helicopter zoomed in on the bodies hitting the water. Later the news anchor said the top of that island was 435 feet above sea level.

    That one video showed around the world that tough times for everyone lay ahead.

    They replayed the President’s speech and his announcement that all coastal areas less than 100 feet above sea level are to be evacuated. I can only imagine the panic coastal areas are having watching this disaster play out. I remember when we bought our place it said the house was at 880 feet. The rest of the speech was stay calm, help your neighbors and stay safe. Nothing was said about the expected drop in temperatures, disaster relief or how to deal with 90 million people heading inland.

    Dish Earth was still showing and I swear you could see a shockwave heading out from the two eruption sites. The band of grey clouds had moved up and there was some mixing of them at the equator. Reports were on the tv saying that the clouds were spreading and most of the southern hemisphere had some form of high level haze, ash or clouds.

    ABC was reporting the military satellites are reporting a 30 mile diameter glowing lava field where the second eruption took place and large volumes of steam rising. They called it a hole in the ocean, but my question is where did the island go?

    The generator was turned off and allowed to cool. I filled it up, put it in the garage and shut and locked the door. We didn’t have power, but that was ok, no one was going to stay up late tonight. Universal exhaustion hit the group. I took a bucket bath and went to bed.
     

    longbow

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    3   0   0
    Apr 2, 2008
    6,900
    63
    south central IN
    Copyright, Longbow Entertainment a Division of Upland Hills

    A few hours of sleep and the beeps from all the stuff getting power again woke us all up. I need to find that wind up clock, because I have no idea of the time. My oldest walked in the room and turned on the TV without saying a thing. My wife has that same look when she is upset.

    She split the screens between our local channel and Fox. Both were showing the water pulling away from the sea on one of the Hawaiian Islands and all the coral and sea plants were not happy to be exposed.

    The local station was watching the feed from one part of Hawaii that they say is cracked and might slide into the sea. They zoomed in the areas on the island that had moved from the two shocks and to me and my wife they didn’t look too dangerous. That whole side of the island has been evacuated.

    Fox was hanging out with two helicopters at Pearl. Every ship that could move was gone, but a few that looked good, were still in port. There were three helicopters sitting on the ground warming up to leave and one was taking the flags from the base. The camera quickly turned back out to sea. In the distance was some white foam from waves breaking far out to sea. The ocean had pulled way back, but was coming back with an attitude. The shipping channel in the ocean they used to bring the ships into Pearl was almost “dry”.

    The other Fox helicopter was racing out to sea to follow the first wave in. The helicopter over Pearl zoomed in to show it as a dot as it moved out to meet the wave and the conversations between the pilots and cameraman were all on open microphone. I didn’t realize how many boats were sunk this close to the Island. It sounded no different than your typical traffic report as they talked.

    The Helicopter out to sea said it was going to follow the third wave in. The first two were about 35 and 50 feet high, but the third one looked like it was going to be much bigger. I heard the pilot say he was going to 500 feet. The reports of the 400 plus foot wave that hit one of the islands had spooked Hawaii and sent the west coast crazy. The first two waves that hit were bad, and reminded me of what happened in Japan a few years back. More and more water quickly flowing in and covering the first and second floors of buildings and then they break up like match sticks and this scene repeats as it moves in. They were calling the second wave hitting the ocean front buildings at almost the 4th floor. The bigger buildings held, but the water just pushed right through the taller buildings. Anything that was less than 4 stories was swept away . From the helicopter the water looked to be at 10’, 25’ 40’ walls of water moving inland at 45 miles per hour from what the pilot said.


    The local helicopter imaged caught my attention. The graphic said it was on the east side of Kauai. Instead of just coral, beaches, and distance waves. All that was in view was dust and mist. I flipped the audio to that station and the pilot was screaming to the cameraman to hold on. The turbines were screaming and you could tell he was rising, but all you could see was dust and mist. The camera turned more to the east and in the distance the hills, beach and coral looked like what Pearl did a few minutes ago. Someone screamed “its sliding” They swung the stabilized camera around again and a huge part of the island was sliding into the ocean! The roar could be heard over the turbines, and as he zoomed out, wider and wider sections of the hillside were falling into the sea. He swung the camera back out to sea, and the slide was not just the hill sliding into the sea, but the sea bottom almost a mile out was sliding down and pushing back the ocean. The mist blocked the true size of the slide and the pilot was increasing altitude to see how wide the side was.

    They zoomed out as the helicopter reached 5,000 feet. He was talking to the cameraman to zoom west to see if he could see Niihau. He said he doesn’t see it. They climbed to 6,000 feet and they were above the mist. The pilot said Kauai from a line from west of Kapaa and the entire island of Niihau are gone! The camera man turned the camera to the south and in all directions the slide was pushing a wave higher and higher in a crescent shape from the west and almost east. The feed went to color bars.

    The two Fox cameras where filming the third wave and it was hitting the 8th floor of the buildings and that was all it took to push them all over. Nothing was even slowing down the wave. The helicopter that was out to sea was reporting this was the largest wave and the others were much lower. He moved over to the east and was filming the damage in Honolulu. He had the helicopter holding steady at 300 feet and moving at an angle to the wave, towards Pearl. The helicopter at Pearl was at about 800 feet and following the motion of the wave and it scoured Pearl clean at a North East path.

    The Pearl Helicopter slowed and turned back to Honolulu to see the damage from the east side of the city as the wave came to them. The Pilot told the other helicopter on the west side of Honolulu to increase altitude because of the buildings in the area. At the same time, we all saw the new wave created by the slide rise easily to 500 feet and start crashing over the shoreline on the far west side of the City. That cameraman was able to rotate the camera into the wave as the helicopter cleared 600 feet. I heard the pilot say that was close and the camera had water droplets on the clean cover for the unit. They showed the waves crashing into the hillsides and soon the signal was lost.

    The news anchor at Fox was left speechless. Then they started to replay the last two minutes and he talked about what we saw with a graphic of the island. Someone off screen was coloring the areas they think were washed over by the last wave.
     
    Last edited:

    strahd71

    Master
    Rating - 0%
    0   0   0
    Dec 2, 2010
    2,471
    36
    wanatah
    Volcanoes never thought of that.

    i lived in eastern Montana for 10 years and we had to deal with the threat that if Yellowstone ever erupted life was going to be pretty rough. we werent in the immediate death area but it still would have been pretty tough to survive for very long because of the amount of ash that we would have gotten.

    jake
     

    longbow

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    3   0   0
    Apr 2, 2008
    6,900
    63
    south central IN
    Copyright, Longbow Entertainment a Division of Upland Hills

    The TV talking heads where putting up graphic with this tsunami going to hit this area and that tsunami going to hit that area… I turned off the TV, and was happy to live in fly over country and four of us went shopping. The stores should be restocked and my other truck has the right number on the plate. This time we are going to Kroger.

    We passed the local food mart, five miles from the house, and the doors were pulled off and the site trashed. My wife wanted to check on the owner, but he was walking around with a shotgun, and he looks pissed. About 100 feet from the door was a pickup with the rear axle pulled away from the frame with a chain the looks like it got stuck on one of the posts that protected the fuel pump. I hope the bad guys stay that stupid! The police tape was still attached to the other side of the truck, so my son guessed Mr. Hamm got at least one of the looters.

    Mailman Mike was riding in the back of the pickup and was first out when we cleared the inspection point at Kroger. The parking lot was a mess with tossed away packing materials so that people could get more stuff in the vehicles, but other than that is was normal. The store manager with an SKS and paintball ammo vest at the doors was not the way I remembered him last time, but things were orderly.

    Aisles with useless stuff like party favors and cheap toys were still full. We were all looking for foods to store and meats to smoke. Prices were about the same, and some quantities were limited. I was not happy about the one cart limit, but since we had 4 people, we did get 4 shopping carts. Each of us had $200 cash and $50 in silver coins. They were not taking silver and the debit card system was still working, so we were going to use it.

    The headline in the local liberal paper was “Pacific Rim Destroyed” as it went in the cart. The TV up front showed the evacuation on the west coast and waves hitting city after city. To be honest, they were all starting to look alike.

    My area was the meat section, and a good supply of chicken and pork were on the shelves. Almost no beef or fish were left. There were limits on frozen meats, but not the refrigerated items. I loaded up and met my frozen limit. For flavor, I tossed in 6 bottles of BBQ sauce and grabbed as many spices as I could.


    Carrie was racing with another lady to get some paper products. I could hear the deals and trades from a few aisles over and took a peak. They even had coupons to swap! The dealing was over lady products and thankfully I did not draw that list this time. They both looked at me a laughed. The manager gave the time warning and we all headed up to pay and leave. The crowds were growing at the door to the point I could hear a few shouting that they wanted to get in. We paid, asked what was happening and headed to the door. A sign had just been posted and said no checks, only cash or debit cards. The ones shouting had food stamps, and for some reason that system was not working. Tempers were rising and a few were not happy we took 4 carts to one truck.


    Two guys walked over to tell us we are stealing from them and all the men in our group told them to back away and leave us alone. The chubby guy shot his mouth for about 10 seconds and went back to the line. The skinny tattooed, meth head looking guy got in our faces and was not going to let down without getting some of our food. It took two of us to keep him away and the police were busy holding the people back at the entrance of the store. Mike saw him pull a knife and try to steal the truck. He put 3 shots into him from the front and side as the meth head went for the truck door. One bullet went through him and took out my headlight, but he fell to the ground from what looked like a hit to his spine. He lay on the parking lot swearing at us, and not in a lot of pain. I kicked the knife away and he was already dead.


    Those shots sent the crowd into a panic and several rushed the doors. A few of the food stamp people pulled guns and shot the manager and police who were looking our way. Things went from a calm standoff, to a riot in about 20 seconds. Carrie shouted get in the truck and we were heading out the side exit as a few shots hit my front fender. Half a cart of some dry goods was left in the parking lot, but none of us were hurt, and we were speeding home.

    The radio in the truck was giving a description of the first tsunami waves hitting San Diego. The first wave was about 30 feet and making a mess of the shoreline. Some fires were on the water and they were saying the forth wave looks to be the worst and will hit the shore in about 10 minutes. The story switched to LA and a 20 foot wave was hitting the beach and at least one surfer was spotted a mile and half out with a cooler waiting for the best wave to ride in.

    They said people had evacuated at least 10 miles from the shore and many people were hanging out in the hills waiting for the ocean to roll in. No one had a good idea of how large the waves will be. The experts said the waves will be between 30 and 200 feet and that depends on how the shallows are laid out near the coastline.


    The military was reporting waves from 450 to 700 feet from the island slide in Hawaii. No major airports, hospitals or food warehouses survived. The waves in some areas went almost 2,500 feet up the mountains washing away everything. Those that survived will not be able to get any aid for weeks or longer.

    They jumped back to LA and the guy in the chopper calling the wave report said a 70' swell was rolling in and nothing is slowing it down. He sounded like a retired surfer dude and was not happy to see his hangouts destroyed.
    Carrie said the truck is heating up so she slowed down. She drove the last half mile to our place and parked the truck. Lifting the hood I noticed the air intake hose and the air filter box were destroyed and that might have cause the truck to heat up. Then she gave me the look than husbands know and told me what she thinks she did to cause it to heat up. She drove all the way back home in 2nd gear instead of D. I told her I don’t think that will screw up the truck and we had a laugh that we made it out alive.

    My daughter was not happy at the turn of events when she heard the story, and we decided to call it a day.

    They have DVR’d the destruction of LA for us to watch. None of us wanted to watch it and took a shower to clean up from the mess we just left. Mike and I both had blood spatter on our clothes and we were in a hurry to change.

    Listening to the scanner, the Kroger, gas station and discount store were all on fire and full blown riot was going on. The police and fire were not even trying to control the riot or blaze.

    We did the right thing getting out of dodge in a Ford.
     
    Last edited:

    BDBHoover

    Master
    Rating - 100%
    2   0   0
    Mar 11, 2011
    1,659
    36
    Northside Indianapolis
    :popcorn:

    WERE ONLY 700ft. ABOVE SEA LEVEL!!!! :runaway:

    Who is the most prepared that is willing to let me and the wife bunk up if SHTF?
    The wife has a culinary degree and she can cook up a storm and I have a long background in security and self defense.... :D
     

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