2:35pm I’m sitting at my desk in near the med center.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel the ground start to shake.\u00c2\u00a0 A security officer comes on the PA system announcing to get to a stairwell\u00c2\u00a0 and evacuate for an earthquake, even though the building is built for it.\u00c2\u00a0 I hear sirens in the med center signalling a serious earthquake.\u00c2\u00a0 I grab my phone and head out of the building.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m 8 stories up, and it takes a few minutes.\u00c2\u00a0 I smell concrete dust in the air as the many coworkers make it down and out.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
2:39pm.\u00c2\u00a0 The shaking has finally stopped just after we got outside.\u00c2\u00a0 I look to the med center and I notice that many windows are missing in the Texas Children’s tower.\u00c2\u00a0 No other visible damage seen.\u00c2\u00a0 Planning for this probably saved us.\u00c2\u00a0 one of the floor wardens has an AM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Rumors are spreading that the earthquake was 8.8 to 8.9 – the strongest I’ve ever heard about.\u00c2\u00a0 I quickly think of Haiti and Chile and New Zealand.\u00c2\u00a0 “Was it offshore?\u00c2\u00a0 Is there a wave?”\u00c2\u00a0 Other repeat my questions as it goes back through the crowd.\u00c2\u00a0 Some people are already leaving by car.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I don’t know\u00c2\u00a0if I should try, in case there’s if a wave.\u00c2\u00a0 A wave..\u00c2\u00a0 I call my wife, she’s at home, it’s ok, but the kids are freaked.\u00c2\u00a0 I talk to each of them to try and calm them down.\u00c2\u00a0I have to be strong.<\/p>\n
“Have you heard anything?”<\/p>\n
“No, I’m watching the news, and they doesn’t know where the center was,” was her reply.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Great.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope it wasn’t too deep.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll come home when they release us, but looks like things are ok.”\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Come home when you can. I love you.”\u00c2\u00a0 I can hear the subdued fear in her voice.<\/p>\n
2:46pm – Wardens say that the building is being checked out for internal damage by the building engineers.\u00c2\u00a0 The dang cell towers are jammed – I can’t launch iHeartRadio to pick up local news radio.\u00c2\u00a0 I try the FM tuner with my headphones.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
“….a level 3 tsunami wave, 25′ in height is heading for Gavleston Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 This will affect anyone between the coast and the loop, and the wash will reach downdown Houston.\u00c2\u00a0 Please get to high ground immedately.\u00c2\u00a0 The wave will hit Galveston in the next minute…”<\/em><\/p>\n I immedately go to the phone and see that I have signal.\u00c2\u00a0 I call home.\u00c2\u00a0 Silence.<\/em> Then, a fast busy.\u00c2\u00a0 The cell towers are jammed.\u00c2\u00a0 I try again.\u00c2\u00a0 Same thing over and over.<\/p>\n 2:48pm.\u00c2\u00a0 On the 6th try, I get a ring.\u00c2\u00a0 I hear rustling in the background as if my wife if dragging something.\u00c2\u00a0 “Honey, go flip the breaker and get upstairs NOW,” I say as calmly as I can.\u00c2\u00a0 Half sobbing, my wife replies, “the neighbor already did, we’re dragging sleeping stuff and toiletries upstairs.\u00c2\u00a0 I really need you here.”<\/p>\n “I don’t think I can make it – they say the wave will reach all the way up where near downtown.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll get downthere when the waves subsides.\u00c2\u00a0 You should be ok, hon.”\u00c2\u00a0 The fear is already creeping in that I may never see my wife and kids again.\u00c2\u00a0 I have to be strong.\u00c2\u00a0 “You can do this.\u00c2\u00a0 You will be OK.”\u00c2\u00a0 I muster all the composure I can.\u00c2\u00a0 “I have to get upstairs here too, just in case.\u00c2\u00a0 I’l\u00c2\u00a0l stay with you as long as I can.”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 “OK,” my wife replies.\u00c2\u00a0 She’s a little calmer too after hearing me.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n 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.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Some how, I kept a signal.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n “Water’s rising – it’s up to the sidewalk,” she reports.\u00c2\u00a0 The neighborhood is 20′ up, 45 miles away from the coast.\u00c2\u00a0 We might be ok.\u00c2\u00a0 “Good babe.\u00c2\u00a0 It shouldn’t\u00c2\u00a0be too much more.”\u00c2\u00a0 “They said first estimates might be wrong.”\u00c2\u00a0 “I know, but we’re tall enough, you’ll be ok,” I reassure her.<\/p>\n 2:52pm.\u00c2\u00a0 “the water’s to the front porch.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve never seen it this high.”\u00c2\u00a0 “Me neither,” I replied. No one’s downstairs, right?”\u00c2\u00a0 “No, the kids, dogs and I are upstairs.\u00c2\u00a0 OH, crap! Go get\u00c2\u00a0the dog food containers!” my wife asks one of the kids.\u00c2\u00a0 A brief pause and I hear my oldest yell, “There’s water all over the floor!”\u00c2\u00a0 “Hurry up!” my wife yells back.\u00c2\u00a0 “It keeps getting higher,” my wife informs me.\u00c2\u00a0 “You still have another 10 feet, babe.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll be ok.”<\/p>\n “Oh, no – I see a car in the street floating down the street.\u00c2\u00a0 It looks like it riding a wave pushing it down….” I immedately get a fast busy.\u00c2\u00a0 I look at my cell phone and I have no signal.\u00c2\u00a0 Great.<\/p>\n 2:57pm.\u00c2\u00a0 I hear shouts from the inside that water has reached the Astrodome.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re on the small one-mile handheld radios with others in the area.\u00c2\u00a0 “It’s coming up quick.”\u00c2\u00a0 “NASA’s under water” some yells.<\/p>\n Man, we’re almost 10 feet above my neighborhood, and it’s still coming.\u00c2\u00a0 My cell phone still doesn’t have a signal.\u00c2\u00a0 I run inside to try a desk phone.\u00c2\u00a0 I call the house number.\u00c2\u00a0 A moment, and it rings.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n My wife is crying.\u00c2\u00a0 “What do we do?\u00c2\u00a0 it’s over halfway if the stairs!!!”\u00c2\u00a0 She’s freaked.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m almost there.\u00c2\u00a0 I breathe and think.\u00c2\u00a0 “If it gets close, go sit on preston’s\u00c2\u00a0bed with the blinds up – you can see outside.”\u00c2\u00a0 She’s not sure:\u00c2\u00a0 “But what if it gets higher?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I keep hearing crashes out side and I think I saw part of the gas station awning go by a minute ago!”\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Got keep safe and warm.\u00c2\u00a0 “Open the attic, put 1\/2 the blankets up there with some clothes and food.\u00c2\u00a0 that’s you last ditch area.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to stay strong honey.”\u00c2\u00a0 Beep.\u00c2\u00a0 the phone cuts off hook.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Our building still has power – I try and see the TV in the break room that’s packed.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n “…the original estimates were way off target.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 We expect water in the first floor of every building south and east of 290 and the 610-loop.\u00c2\u00a0 Galveston is completely underwater, except for UTMB and Moody Gardens, the top of the buildings are visible at this time.\u00c2\u00a0 I-45 is underwater \u00c2\u00a0up to Scarsdale and it’s rising.\u00c2\u00a0 NASA cannot be seen<\/em>…”<\/p>\n The feeling in the sit of my stomach just overhelmed me.\u00c2\u00a0 I find a empty room and just start to cry.<\/p>\n Where is my family?\u00c2\u00a0 Are they ok?\u00c2\u00a0 Almost everyone I KNOW lives between here and the coast.\u00c2\u00a0 The area that’s about to be completely under water by TENS OF FEET\u00c2\u00a0 What do I do?\u00c2\u00a0 Who can help me?\u00c2\u00a0 Who will I find them?\u00c2\u00a0 Will I find them in time?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n My friends, multiply this by a couple million, and that’s the START of the despair in Japan.\u00c2\u00a0 Just as in the story,\u00c2\u00a0 I can only PRAY.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 2:35pm I’m sitting at my desk in near the med center.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel the ground start to shake.\u00c2\u00a0 A security officer comes on the PA system announcing to get to a stairwell\u00c2\u00a0 and evacuate for an earthquake, even though the building is built for it.\u00c2\u00a0 I hear sirens in the med center signalling a serious … <\/p>\n