I woke up Saturday morning to a Facebook post from an Alberta cousin, with a link to the BC government's tsunami alert page.
We've had these before. Not a lot, but you don't need a lot. You just need one. Like earthquakes, I've slept through some of them.
This was a "tsunami advisory" (as opposed to a warning), so we were being advised to stay away from beaches, and, if in the water, to get out.
I decided to get out of bed, reasoning that it was at least a good idea to be dressed.
I had finished my morning routine at about 8:55, and the waves were scheduled to reach Tofino, a village on the west coast of Vancouver Island, which, unlike Victoria, has absolutely nothing blocking it from the Pacific Ocean. (We can't even see the Pacific Ocean from Victoria, just Washington State.)
Being a denizen of the early twenty-first century, I checked Twitter, and found links to a number of Tofino web-cams. What I saw were calm, misty beaches. I watched in fascination as a lone dog-walker strolled the sand. Behind him, an ominous white band had formed on the horizon.
Within five minutes, the waves arrived, white, angry, and rather eerie with little wind blowing. Tofino happened to be at low tide, but it didn't look like low tide. Clusters of people appeared, standing at the inner edge of the beach, and holding phones aloft. I checked other web-cams and saw similar scenes: people bundled up against the morning chill, clutching coffees and chatting, sometimes to each other, sometimes to their phones. I took grim pleasure in watching one couple, in matching yellow slickers, suddenly having to scramble over the driftwoods and rocks, when a wave rolled rapidly towards them.
No one swept out to sea. In Tofino, anyway.
I now find myself waiting for the inevitable reports of horror from the other side of the Pacific. Tonga has been out of communication with the world for nearly 48 hours.
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