Tsunami

Tsunami incoming, sirens are going off and I’m alone in the house while everyone is stuck in evacuation traffic. Trying to prep a birthday dinner, thinking about some heavy stuff that happened in the last 2 days, phone blowing up, sirens blaring. It all feels weird.

We live on high ground, but the schools and my library are in flood zones, so I guess we’ll see how that goes.  Hope everyone gets home soon.

I’ll update later. Wave should arrive in 2 hours.

Update 6:40pm: sirens going again, phones warning that we have 30 minutes to evacuate coastal areas. Kids and dad made it home after 2 hours of gridlock. Leif’s girlfriend lives on the beach, she’s sheltering at the high school with her family, the roads are blocked. He’s really worried. My mother and Gavin are still stuck in traffic on H3, but they’re elevated. Watching the news coming out of Japan, upsetting footage of the whales. Waiting, hoping Gavin and mom get here before it’s dark.

update 7am next day: well, tsunami coverage has not improved at all since 2012. Once it's dark, nobody knows what's happening. My mother's school is on the beach, and they get in trouble if there's even regular high surf, so she's going to see if the road got swamped and if the water got into the library this morning. After being stuck in traffic for 4 hours, she took a nap when she got here and left for home pretty late, full of ribeye and cheesecake. Leif's girlfriend finally got to go home at 10pm. It's always slightly embarrassing for everyone to respond to an emergency and then have nothing happen, but it's better than not responding and getting dead, so that's okay.