Tsunami Warnings and Public Chaos

First of all, natural disasters are terrible things, and for all the people in S. America who are suffering at the moment, our hearts go out to them. While the death toll is mercifully low, there will be many Chileans, Peruvians and Ecuadorians who are doing their best to return their lives to normal today, and every single one of them deserves our thoughts.

I had drafted a full post to bring everyone up to speed on the last few days, days that I'll now cover in a layer post.

For the moment I thought I would bring you all a first hand account from inside a Tsunami evacuation. Even as an Emergency Manager it was something very surreal and worth knowing about...

Tuesday 1 April, 2014. Isla Isabella, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
We'd arrived on Isla Isabella at 5pm and, after checking into our hotel, take a walk the block-and-a-half walk to the beach. It's simply something you need to experience to believe. Pristine white coral sand, beachside bars and restaurants, azure waters and bronzed volleyballers. Think everything you've experienced in Thailand, Australia and the south of France and you're close, but not quite there. It's beautiful.

At about 1830hrs1 we left the beach to shower and get ready for dinner. It was. Laurel's birthday, and we'd planned a dinner at a recommended local restaurant and had even planned a chocolate cake, Laurel's favourite, to celebrate.

After we'd showered, I put the (Spanish) news on while Laurel finished up with the outfit. The yes/no on various items of jewellery or make-up were the most pressing things on our minds. Glancing at the TV in between fashion decisions, I noticed that the news seemed to be on repeat - cars driving in the dark and obviously leaving somewhere. There was a split screen between the studio and Concepcion. The ticker at the bottom of the screen was scrolling through a message, and in the middle of the Spanish I could just make out "8.0", "Chile" and "tsunami."

I'd like to think that the thought process that I moved into then was a result of my training, but in honesty I think that anyone in that position would recognise that this combination of words is bad. Very bad.

Now this is the first part of when my job and training kicked in. I turned off my phone's airplane mode so that I could receive text messages and jumped onto the open source disaster alerts server. Yes, there had been a magnitude 8.2 earthquake off Chile, yes there was a tsunami alert in place and, yes, the Galapagos Islands fell into the alert area.

But we had heard nothing from the locals, there was no panic on the streets and indeed everything seemed normal. Quickly taking note of the wave times, after converting from Zulu/UTC, we joined the group in the hotel courtyard for dinner. The miracle of modern communication had kicked into gear, and everyone already knew. But they all also knew what I do for a living, and there were more than a few questions. 

"What do we do now?", "Are we evacuating?", "When will the waves arrive?", "Where do we go?"

I'm not a local. I can tell, like any other Emergency Manager, what the hazards in the area are, and make a preliminary assessment as to the risks, but the risk treatments, or emergency incident management plans are just as unfamiliar to me as any other tourist. I reassured the group that there was still a matter of hours before a wave, if there was to be a wave, would arrive and that the local Police would be letting people know if there was an evacuation. I also reasoned that our guide would be joining us shortly, and may have more information. 

I'm not 100 percent sure that I was keeping the uncertainty (fear?) out of my voice. I'm not going to lie, it was a frightening experience. I've seen the Indian Ocean tsunami coverage and have worked the Japanese tsunami from a coordination centre. I know how volatile the Nazca Plate is to earthquake activity, tsunami generation and that this particular fault had been playing up for a few weeks. 

I'm not going to lie, I was scared.

Our guide arrived and told us to pack essential documents and water into our daypacks. I added that everyone should grab a jumper. We reconvened five minutes later and set off, still with dinner plans as there was just an alert, not a warning. "Just."

Not fifty metres from the hotel we heard the bells on the beach ringing and the guide confirmed that this was the evacuation signal.

It still amazes me how quickly human beings can change. The streets changed in a second. At once there were trucks moving away from the beach and people running.

Looking around the group, there was panic in some eyes and confusion in others. I'm confident that Australians are used to bush-fires and floods, but just as I was confronted by my first earthquake in Christchurch, so were we all experiencing our first tsunami.

We continued onto the main road out of town towards the hills, and there was now evidence of a wider panic. Locals were running with children and pets in their arms. A front end loader moved towards the beach without regard for anyone running the opposite direction and at one point a Police quad-bike drove past, the driver, in plain clothes, yelling at people to flee.

Our guide, to his eternal credit, remained calm. He had a family in the town, and I can only imagine the mental battle pulling him between them and us.

He stopped us by a corner store and convinced the owner to let us buy water. I added that people should get some food - if we were to evacuate, and there was a wave, we may be gone for days, and alone before help arrived.

Inside the corner store, the front shutters were closed, the danger of panic buying or all-out looking quite real. Having bought our supplies, we were ushered out the back and returned to the main street. 

At this point, it was obvious that our guide had gone looking for transport, leaving us by ourselves, save for the Spanish speaking company accountant travelling with the group.

We made our way to the main intersection of the town, and were nearly herded onto the backs of tip-trucks, split up and in a strange town, not speaking the local language. It was at this point I'm reasonably sure my training kicked in. I knew that I just wanted to keep the group together, and safe.

I want to stress that I'm not writing this to glorify myself, I certainly had my faults in the next few minutes and I think any after-action review would identify actions that I could do differently next time. This account may also look/sound different to the others who were there, but from the feedback I've received both last night and today from the group, I believe this is accurate.

I'm writing this so that there's an account from my perspective of what happened.

At the intersection, members of the group were being herded towards a tip-truck crammed with people by a man in a tabard. The group was being split up and some were beginning to really panic.

I made my way through the group while someone was, almost crying, telling the man in the tabard that we can't be split up. In reality, I told him "no, gracias" but the effect was the same.

I moved the group out of the way, to the side of the intersection. Reassuring everyone that our guide was (probably) finding us transport - he had commented earlier that he'd organised a van - and that we just needed to wait. The wave was still 3 hours away. It was now 1930hrs.

The company accountant made her way through the group and gave me her mobile. On the line was the guide. Through the noise he explained that he'd arranged transport, to pick us up at the hotel, and we needed to make our way back there.

At this point, I think I need to reinforce the scene. Dark, few street lights, people everywhere, cars everywhere, Police nowhere, noise, panic.

I called the group together and explained that the guide was on the phone and we need to make our way back to the hotel. Everyone needed to find their room buddy, stick with them and calmly walk back to the hotel. The accountant would lead the way, we still had time, there was no rush.

We set off, clearly walking against the tide of people leaving the coast.

The buddy system fell apart within seconds, but we stayed together. I made sure we had a head count and one of the other members of the group offered to do anything I needed to delegate.

This is the point others have commented on today. I was thanked - unnecessarily - for remaining calm, providing direction and keeping the group together. I'm not convinced that I did any of those particularly well, but the in the middle of chaos perhaps people cling to any sense of order that exists.

At the hotel, another group was being shepherded onto a bus. We moved our group inside the courtyard and Laurel and I went to grab our shoes - we had forgotten those earlier and were just in thongs.

Now with shoes, the group had split into two different busses, but the tour company staff were in each. I think my biggest failing of the night was letting the group be split, but under the circumstances I think there was little I could do.

It was also at this point that I stopped being a professional, and became another evacuee.

The 45 minute bus ride to the tour company's pre-arranged evacuation point was a mix of surrealism, contemplative quiet and calm reassurance for everyone else on board. I think making light of the situation - the lack of beer brought with us and the missed opportunity for looting - kept others calm and played down the seriousness of the situation. If a professional can joke, then surely there's nothing to worry about, right? Inside, I was fighting a battle between my own fears and the desire to reassure others, knowing that I was being watched. I had no idea where we were going, whether there was still a threat - images of the Indian Ocean tsunami kept flooding back to me - or where the other bus was. I felt as though, with his phone call, the guide had entrusted me with his group while he looked after his family.

On the way, the company man in the bus received a phone call advising him that the warning had been downgraded, but that we would still go to the evacuation centre.

We arrived at the home of the hotel owners, who had set up a covered outdoor area for us all. Our bus set up a table with the snacks and water and, to my relief, we were shortly joined by the other bus. It was now 2130.

With tents set up, we passed the next few hours playing cards or chatting. Laurel was taking pictures of the people in the "centre" and, every few minutes, someone asked me when we would be returning - the only answer I could give was that the wave was due at 2230 and there would still be some time after that before the local authorities knew we were safe. 

By 2200 we were joined by the tour guide and his family, a really nice old couple, and settled in for the long haul. Some of the group took advantage of the tents and got some sleep. Others kept talking or playing cards.

At 2300 the guide's father pickled up a (Spanish) news update - roughly translated by an expat as "warning downgraded."

At 0100 the owner of the house received a phone call, the all-clear had been given and we could return. We were all but kicked out, but the busses returned us to the hotel for some much needed sleep. Adrenaline is great, but once it wears off...



I think there were many things that could have been done better last night, for me and the local authorities. I can't properly describe what it was like, and even if I could it's only one piece of the puzzle.

Cam

1 All times are in local time (Galapagos Islands), six hours behind UTC and 17 hours behind Australian EST.