It was an adrenaline loaded evening... I was having a quiet night at home for once, watching Gilmore Girls on DVD... I turned it off at 9, there being a show I wanted to watch, and as I switched from DVD to TV I caught the tail end of an Emergency Broadcast System Alert. At first I thought it might be an Amber Alert for a missing child, but then they started talking again. A 7.0 earthquake had struck off the coast of California, about 300 miles away from here, and there was a tsunami watch for the entire Pacific coast.

I think there was the amount of frenzy there was because of the one in Asia in December. But my parents live right on the coast. My best friends parents live on a cliff in Mendocino, much closer to the epicenter. I called my parents, I called my best friend to tell her to call her parents, it was nuts. Very shortly after I heard the news, they called off the watch, and everyone breathed again.

The only other tsunami warning I can remember was when I was about 11. I don't remember being all that worried for my own safety, thinking the water couldn't come anywhere close to our house. I'm older now, and having seen just how far the water went in Thailand, well, I wasn't so convinced this time that my parents house was far enough away.

I can't imagine if it had happened here. I would be safe, living about 17 miles inland, with some decently sized hills between my house and the ocean, but I know so many people who live on the coast. All the important places of my childhood could have been swept away in an instant, and I still know a lot of people who live there. And all I could think about though was Rasee. How she lived so close to the devastation, but she was safe. How I would not have been as strong and as proactive as she was. How the toys I still have here at the house for the Warm Fuzzies project might have been needed for kids here. It was crazy.

Oh my gosh. You poor thing. I'm glad your okay though. :)