What if it was here…

2:35pm I’m sitting at my desk in near the med center.  I feel the ground start to shake.  A security officer comes on the PA system announcing to get to a stairwell  and evacuate for an earthquake, even though the building is built for it.  I hear sirens in the med center signalling a serious earthquake.  I grab my phone and head out of the building.  I’m 8 stories up, and it takes a few minutes.  I smell concrete dust in the air as the many coworkers make it down and out. 

2:39pm.  The shaking has finally stopped just after we got outside.  I look to the med center and I notice that many windows are missing in the Texas Children’s tower.  No other visible damage seen.  Planning for this probably saved us.  one of the floor wardens has an AM radio.  Rumors are spreading that the earthquake was 8.8 to 8.9 – the strongest I’ve ever heard about.  I quickly think of Haiti and Chile and New Zealand.  “Was it offshore?  Is there a wave?”  Other repeat my questions as it goes back through the crowd.  Some people are already leaving by car.  I don’t know if I should try, in case there’s if a wave.  A wave..  I call my wife, she’s at home, it’s ok, but the kids are freaked.  I talk to each of them to try and calm them down. I have to be strong.

“Have you heard anything?”

“No, I’m watching the news, and they doesn’t know where the center was,” was her reply. 

“Great.  I hope it wasn’t too deep.  I’ll come home when they release us, but looks like things are ok.” 

“Come home when you can. I love you.”  I can hear the subdued fear in her voice.

2:46pm – Wardens say that the building is being checked out for internal damage by the building engineers.  The dang cell towers are jammed – I can’t launch iHeartRadio to pick up local news radio.  I try the FM tuner with my headphones. 

“….a level 3 tsunami wave, 25′ in height is heading for Gavleston Bay.  This will affect anyone between the coast and the loop, and the wash will reach downdown Houston.  Please get to high ground immedately.  The wave will hit Galveston in the next minute…”

I immedately go to the phone and see that I have signal.  I call home.  Silence. Then, a fast busy.  The cell towers are jammed.  I try again.  Same thing over and over.

2:48pm.  On the 6th try, I get a ring.  I hear rustling in the background as if my wife if dragging something.  “Honey, go flip the breaker and get upstairs NOW,” I say as calmly as I can.  Half sobbing, my wife replies, “the neighbor already did, we’re dragging sleeping stuff and toiletries upstairs.  I really need you here.”

“I don’t think I can make it – they say the wave will reach all the way up where near downtown.  I’ll get downthere when the waves subsides.  You should be ok, hon.”  The fear is already creeping in that I may never see my wife and kids again.  I have to be strong.  “You can do this.  You will be OK.”  I muster all the composure I can.  “I have to get upstairs here too, just in case.  I’l l stay with you as long as I can.”    “OK,” my wife replies.  She’s a little calmer too after hearing me. 

2:50pm I’m back in the buidling on the 3rd floor – many of us are on the patio that looks north, some are on higher floors, looking south.   Some how, I kept a signal. 

“Water’s rising – it’s up to the sidewalk,” she reports.  The neighborhood is 20′ up, 45 miles away from the coast.  We might be ok.  “Good babe.  It shouldn’t be too much more.”  “They said first estimates might be wrong.”  “I know, but we’re tall enough, you’ll be ok,” I reassure her.

2:52pm.  “the water’s to the front porch.   I’ve never seen it this high.”  “Me neither,” I replied. No one’s downstairs, right?”  “No, the kids, dogs and I are upstairs.  OH, crap! Go get the dog food containers!” my wife asks one of the kids.  A brief pause and I hear my oldest yell, “There’s water all over the floor!”  “Hurry up!” my wife yells back.  “It keeps getting higher,” my wife informs me.  “You still have another 10 feet, babe.  You’ll be ok.”

“Oh, no – I see a car in the street floating down the street.  It looks like it riding a wave pushing it down….” I immedately get a fast busy.  I look at my cell phone and I have no signal.  Great.

2:57pm.  I hear shouts from the inside that water has reached the Astrodome.  They’re on the small one-mile handheld radios with others in the area.  “It’s coming up quick.”  “NASA’s under water” some yells.

Man, we’re almost 10 feet above my neighborhood, and it’s still coming.  My cell phone still doesn’t have a signal.  I run inside to try a desk phone.  I call the house number.  A moment, and it rings. 

My wife is crying.  “What do we do?  it’s over halfway if the stairs!!!”  She’s freaked.  I’m almost there.  I breathe and think.  “If it gets close, go sit on preston’s bed with the blinds up – you can see outside.”  She’s not sure:  “But what if it gets higher?   I keep hearing crashes out side and I think I saw part of the gas station awning go by a minute ago!” 

Got keep safe and warm.  “Open the attic, put 1/2 the blankets up there with some clothes and food.  that’s you last ditch area.  You’ve got to stay strong honey.”  Beep.  the phone cuts off hook. 

Our building still has power – I try and see the TV in the break room that’s packed. 

“…the original estimates were way off target.  A maximum wave of 35 feet is the new report from the USGS, and they are already mobilizing resources from San Antonio, Austin and Dallas heading to Houston.  We expect water in the first floor of every building south and east of 290 and the 610-loop.  Galveston is completely underwater, except for UTMB and Moody Gardens, the top of the buildings are visible at this time.  I-45 is underwater  up to Scarsdale and it’s rising.  NASA cannot be seen…”

The feeling in the sit of my stomach just overhelmed me.  I find a empty room and just start to cry.

Where is my family?  Are they ok?  Almost everyone I KNOW lives between here and the coast.  The area that’s about to be completely under water by TENS OF FEET  What do I do?  Who can help me?  Who will I find them?  Will I find them in time?

My friends, multiply this by a couple million, and that’s the START of the despair in Japan.  Just as in the story,  I can only PRAY.