Sunday, December 26, 2004
Email #2 - Dec 26, 2004
From Katie - Dec 26, 2004:
10:30 PM
We all just went over to Boat Lagoon, but the ship’s captain said too many boats were coming in the channel, so we couldn’t get out tonight. I’m NOT terribly disappointed. We’ll wait 24 hours and see how Mother Nature is doing…
So you don’t need to worry about us on the open sea…..
Love,
Katie
10:30 PM
We all just went over to Boat Lagoon, but the ship’s captain said too many boats were coming in the channel, so we couldn’t get out tonight. I’m NOT terribly disappointed. We’ll wait 24 hours and see how Mother Nature is doing…
So you don’t need to worry about us on the open sea…..
Love,
Katie
Email #1 - Dec 26, 2004
From Katie - Dec 26, 2004:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/index.html
David and I were each sitting at computers downstairs this morning at 8 AM and suddenly began to feel sick to our stomachs as things in front of our eyes began to move – it was the house starting to shake. And it kept on shaking slowly but surely. After several long minutes, we decided to get the boys up and out of the house (not knowing how long it would go on and how sturdy this house was). It didn’t last that much longer, but it was weird.
Since then we’ve been watching on the internet (check out the site above). If you look at a map, the northern tip of Sumatra where an 8.1 earthquake hit is not far from Phuket and since that first quake there have been other ones moving up a chain of islands – all to the west of Phuket.
I just spoke with Angie Batt, our neighbor two doors down whose husband is the manager of one of the 5-star Laguna hotels on the west coast. Evidently the sea water level rose by 2 meters, flooding the shoreline (sweeping all the hawkers’ booths into the lagoon), even flooding some of the ground-floor rooms of hotel buildings near the shore. One guest drowned when the wall of the lagoon he was standing next to collapsed due to the flooding water. We hear there are dead bodies floating in the seaside streets of Kamala and that there are deaths in Patong. I guess anyone swimming at 8 AM or walking along the beach on that western side of the island would have been swept away.
Gee, and we’re due to go out on Clive’s boat tonight. At least it’s big and steel-hulled, so impossible to capsize (they say). We’re on the east side of the island – as is Clive’s boat and we were due to head east – away from the earthquake area. We’re not going for 12 hours, so there’s time to see what’s happening with the earth.
But it’s horrible to think of drownings on the west side of the island – and lots of flooding damage.
More later,
Love,
Katie
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/index.html
David and I were each sitting at computers downstairs this morning at 8 AM and suddenly began to feel sick to our stomachs as things in front of our eyes began to move – it was the house starting to shake. And it kept on shaking slowly but surely. After several long minutes, we decided to get the boys up and out of the house (not knowing how long it would go on and how sturdy this house was). It didn’t last that much longer, but it was weird.
Since then we’ve been watching on the internet (check out the site above). If you look at a map, the northern tip of Sumatra where an 8.1 earthquake hit is not far from Phuket and since that first quake there have been other ones moving up a chain of islands – all to the west of Phuket.
I just spoke with Angie Batt, our neighbor two doors down whose husband is the manager of one of the 5-star Laguna hotels on the west coast. Evidently the sea water level rose by 2 meters, flooding the shoreline (sweeping all the hawkers’ booths into the lagoon), even flooding some of the ground-floor rooms of hotel buildings near the shore. One guest drowned when the wall of the lagoon he was standing next to collapsed due to the flooding water. We hear there are dead bodies floating in the seaside streets of Kamala and that there are deaths in Patong. I guess anyone swimming at 8 AM or walking along the beach on that western side of the island would have been swept away.
Gee, and we’re due to go out on Clive’s boat tonight. At least it’s big and steel-hulled, so impossible to capsize (they say). We’re on the east side of the island – as is Clive’s boat and we were due to head east – away from the earthquake area. We’re not going for 12 hours, so there’s time to see what’s happening with the earth.
But it’s horrible to think of drownings on the west side of the island – and lots of flooding damage.
More later,
Love,
Katie
Phuket Connection
My sister Katie lives on Phuket, Thailand, and she was there with her husband David and teenaged sons Sam & Max during the tsunami on December 26th. (Her daughter Maggie is here in Maine with us for a few months.) Many people have called or written asking how Katie & her family are, so I thought this would be a good way to keep people informed. Katie and David have written several emails, and I will cut & paste some of them here.
