Tsumani!

     The TV news this evening is filled with stories about a tsunami alert that sounded yesterday (Jan. 22, 2017) along the coasts of Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. We've been there, done that.
     At the time of the big Alaska earthquake of 1964, I was a junior in high school and out on a date. I had a 10: p.m. curfew, so after a double feature at the Drive-In theater (or, "the passion pit" as Vake called it), I went home. Nobody was there. The whole family had driven to the bridge over the Siuslaw River at Florence to see if a tidal wave would come up the river. Eventually, they felt skunked, and came home.  The next day, the sand dunes across the river from the city bore the scar of a big wave having come up the river.
     A contractor whom Vake had worked for, Bud Baldwin, lived at Yachats or Walport, further north on the coast, in a house he had build close to the beach . He told how he had seen the ocean withdraw farther than he had ever seen it flow out before. He threw his family into his truck and they drove to higher ground as quickly as they could go. Later, he returned home and was a line of tidal detritus that stopped just outside of the sliding door on the ocean side of their house.
     When I visit Florence, usually I impose on Sandy or Mark for a room, but when their places are booked, I stay at the Old Town Motel close to the bridge over the Siuslaw. I have been impressed that a card in my room directs me where to run if the tsunami sirens sound.