Tidal

My worst recurring nightmare since childhood is one where I'm vacationing at the beach with my family, and a tidal wave comes in. The walls of beach are extremely steep (kind of like what I've seen on the coast of Italy, with tall houses next to a cliff of shoreline) so I can't get out of the way of the water. I still have this nightmare to this day, on a semi-regular basis. I remember reading something similar in Island of the Blue Dolphins, a book I still have from my younger days. The main character is alone on her island, feels an earthquake, and notices that the tide is very far out. She ends up tying herself to a cliff face to avoid being swept out to sea.

Of course, I've been thinking a lot about the people affected by the Tsunami and what it would mean to me if I had relatives there vacationing (my brother loved that area when he lived in Korea, and my aunt and uncle recently moved to the U.S. from a multiple year stint in Japan). I fear for what those people went through. It's so hard to argue with mother nature, and hard to be afraid of something that was so random, and so long coming (the worst tsunami in 60 years I think). Can you really say, "Oh, well, we're not going to go there. They have tidal waves,"? I just don't know where to put all of my thoughts right now.

This is likely to be the most expensive disaster in history. There is so much immediate need for water, medicines, clothing, and shelter. Here are some resources.