Monday, December 27, 2004
Email #4 - Dec 27, 2004
From Katie - Dec 27, 2004:
Just spent the day at school – Dulwich -- manning the registration desk for people needing shelter for a night (or until they can find a next staging ground – whether a flight home or whatever).
Very sobering. Adults catatonically distraught at the loss of a spouse (with me not knowing whether they already knew it was hopeless or whether the spouse was just ‘missing’ – so just having to say, “Now what is your name? Where are you from? Where were you staying?”). People with severe cuts, bruises, and wounds – all over their bodies. Others just lost – mentally and physically -- from the experience. Most were tourists, but there were also many Thais among the 200 odd I checked in, e.g., doctors and nurses, flown down from Bangkok. Other Thais were staff from resorts up the coast which were ruined (along with the staff housing).
Dulwich teachers went out to hospitals, helping those walking wounded being released find a place to stay until flying out, and to the Phuket city hall, where the embassy staff had desks, issuing temporary travel permits/passports. They would collect people needing a place to stay and vanloads would then descend upon Dulwich and we would assign them to boarding houses. Embassy staff were also staying at Dulwich, but they’re not expected to show up to sleep until late tonight.
Some Dulwich staff – experts at diving – spent the day searching submerged carparks and buildings/cellars in Patong, looking for bodies.
Most of the people coming in today were from the outlying areas – e.g., the island of Phi Phi and the northern shores of Khao Lak – not from on Phuket island. These refugees had spent the night either in the jungle or in primitive medical areas, before being driven down to Phuket – the major metropolis.
We heard the British embassy was bringing in extra staff – so we needed extra beds – and the rumour was that the British government was flying in special planes to take out the British citizens. Most of the people I registered were German or Swedish or Finnish. (Those Nordic countries really love the sun in the middle of winter….)
Then there was a call for A Negative blood – a rare blood type among Asians. Several of the traumatized foreigners were willing to climb into a mini-van for a long trek and wait at a local hospital to give blood – knowing what a difference it would make.
Heard horrible stories of babies and children being swept away. Most of the Dulwich staff is now accounted for. The art teacher was finally located after being medically evacuated from Phi Phi Island. We only know she is “ok”. Another teacher had gone to Sri Lanka for the Xmas holiday. We’ve given up on him.
Tomorrow I imagine my day will be spent ferrying people to Phuket Town (where the embassy reps are stationed) or to the airport (where there are shuttle services to Bangkok).
It’s all so sad.
-- Katie
Just spent the day at school – Dulwich -- manning the registration desk for people needing shelter for a night (or until they can find a next staging ground – whether a flight home or whatever).
Very sobering. Adults catatonically distraught at the loss of a spouse (with me not knowing whether they already knew it was hopeless or whether the spouse was just ‘missing’ – so just having to say, “Now what is your name? Where are you from? Where were you staying?”). People with severe cuts, bruises, and wounds – all over their bodies. Others just lost – mentally and physically -- from the experience. Most were tourists, but there were also many Thais among the 200 odd I checked in, e.g., doctors and nurses, flown down from Bangkok. Other Thais were staff from resorts up the coast which were ruined (along with the staff housing).
Dulwich teachers went out to hospitals, helping those walking wounded being released find a place to stay until flying out, and to the Phuket city hall, where the embassy staff had desks, issuing temporary travel permits/passports. They would collect people needing a place to stay and vanloads would then descend upon Dulwich and we would assign them to boarding houses. Embassy staff were also staying at Dulwich, but they’re not expected to show up to sleep until late tonight.
Some Dulwich staff – experts at diving – spent the day searching submerged carparks and buildings/cellars in Patong, looking for bodies.
Most of the people coming in today were from the outlying areas – e.g., the island of Phi Phi and the northern shores of Khao Lak – not from on Phuket island. These refugees had spent the night either in the jungle or in primitive medical areas, before being driven down to Phuket – the major metropolis.
We heard the British embassy was bringing in extra staff – so we needed extra beds – and the rumour was that the British government was flying in special planes to take out the British citizens. Most of the people I registered were German or Swedish or Finnish. (Those Nordic countries really love the sun in the middle of winter….)
Then there was a call for A Negative blood – a rare blood type among Asians. Several of the traumatized foreigners were willing to climb into a mini-van for a long trek and wait at a local hospital to give blood – knowing what a difference it would make.
Heard horrible stories of babies and children being swept away. Most of the Dulwich staff is now accounted for. The art teacher was finally located after being medically evacuated from Phi Phi Island. We only know she is “ok”. Another teacher had gone to Sri Lanka for the Xmas holiday. We’ve given up on him.
Tomorrow I imagine my day will be spent ferrying people to Phuket Town (where the embassy reps are stationed) or to the airport (where there are shuttle services to Bangkok).
It’s all so sad.
-- Katie
Email #3 - Dec 27, 2004
From Katie - Dec 27, 2004 - an expanded version of Email #1:
Just to let you know – though I know you would have checked with Westbrook if you were worried. Yes, we’re all safe.
We definitely felt the quake. Yesterday morning David and I were each sitting at computers downstairs 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. I kept staring at a mirror hanging on the wall in front of my computer and it was swaying back and forth. David was sitting at our big dining room table which he said was shifting back and forth. After several long minutes, we decided to get the kids up and out of the house -- not knowing how long it would go on and how sturdy this house was. And even though going outside is NOT what you’re supposed to do. The tremors didn’t last that much longer, but it was weird.
We then began to start looking on the internet, waiting for news of it to seep out – which took awhile. This site is the US one that we particularly watched, to see the number of aftershocks building up – none of which we felt -- http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Maps/region/Asia_eqs.html.
By late morning we began to hear via friends (the mobile phone network was jammed, but text messages (SMS) were going through fine) of news on the west side of the island – bodies floating in the streets, destruction, but also reports of minimal destruction in other areas. For example, the boys have a good friend who lives down near the southern most point of the island – and he said he there was minimal damage – he went swimming on a beach that had been relatively protected by a bay. But then he went up to the next areas on the west side, Kata and Karon, which are totally exposed to the open ocean and he said it was horrible. The boys have another friend who is staying at a beach resort up the Thai coast from Phuket and he got through last night to say that beach was badly hit.
We were/are in no danger at all from the wave. The damage on Phuket was limited to some of the western beaches and we live on the east side, which is much more sheltered by sitting to the left of the mainland. In fact, I’d say the tsunamis affected perhaps just 10% of the island – in terms of both area and numbers of people.
Phuket has a steep spine of mountains running north-south, so people on those low-lying western beaches had hills (with houses, hotels, and other human beings on them) readily available to run to. There are also plenty of available resources of food, shelter, and hospitals on this island – which were untouched. I know our school – Dulwich – was preparing last night for an influx of 1,000 evacuees (all tourist or not, I don’t know) to sleep in boarding houses and on the gymnasium floors. I sent over extra bedding, towels, and food. Must call and see what the needs are today. We didn’t go driving around yesterday as the roads traversing the island are narrow and windy and it would be all too easy to clog them.
It is the smaller islands, like Phi Phi, which sound much worse off – in that they’re small and the only development was on the beach front. So they don’t have any strong back-up resources on the same island. I also feel so much more sorry for the peoples of Sri Lanka and India – where the tsunami was so much stronger. Not to mention the Indonesians – it will be interesting to find out what really happened in that remote northern province of Aceh.
I must say, some of the news reports are a little exaggerated. We just saw on CNN a trailer that said: “Witness: Famed Laguna Beach Resort destroyed”. Yet yesterday late afternoon we were talking to the general manager of that hotel at his home two doors down. He’d been at his hotel all day and they had had damage, including one tourist drowned and the need to re-accommodate maybe a hundred guests – due to flooding of rooms closest to the sea – and lots of debris to clean up – but it was NOT destroyed, by any stretch of the imagination. Of the five 5-star hotels that make up the Laguna complex, one – the Dusit – was the worst hit with a whole restaurant structure destroyed, while another was completely untouched (except for the seaside hawkers’ flimsy booths being washed out to sea). As for food supplies, according to that hotel manager, all but one or two of the restaurants in the whole complex of hotels were up and running. And hotel guests had been asked to volunteer to double up in rooms and people were being very accommodating, he said. He seemed quite calm about it all – at least from the high-end tourist point of view.
Of course, the CNN/BBC TV reports focusing on tourists is a little bizarre – though understandable. People around the world watching the English-language broadcasts have more in common with English-speaking tourists than with the local inhabitants of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand. But, come on, losing all your holiday belongings is not quite the same as losing your life belongings. And the number of tourists dead will be minimal compared to the natives.
One silver lining of the event was that it was still early morning – by tourist holiday standards – so the beaches were not packed. How much worse it would have been at midday or in the afternoon. The news that will only gradually emerge will be about the people missing -- out on diving trips or out in boats for the day. The hope is that people are safe but stranded on little islands. All of our personal friends have been accounted for, but I do wonder when we get back to school whether there will be any deaths within our community.
We were due to go out on a friend’s boat at midnight last night for a two-day cruise. I must say I try not to think about the random timing of these things. What if we had been out on the sea? Would we have just bobbed along on the top of the tsunamis? Would we have capsized? Where might we have been when the thing hit?
Such is life…..
Love,
Katie
Just to let you know – though I know you would have checked with Westbrook if you were worried. Yes, we’re all safe.
We definitely felt the quake. Yesterday morning David and I were each sitting at computers downstairs 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. I kept staring at a mirror hanging on the wall in front of my computer and it was swaying back and forth. David was sitting at our big dining room table which he said was shifting back and forth. After several long minutes, we decided to get the kids up and out of the house -- not knowing how long it would go on and how sturdy this house was. And even though going outside is NOT what you’re supposed to do. The tremors didn’t last that much longer, but it was weird.
We then began to start looking on the internet, waiting for news of it to seep out – which took awhile. This site is the US one that we particularly watched, to see the number of aftershocks building up – none of which we felt -- http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Maps/region/Asia_eqs.html.
By late morning we began to hear via friends (the mobile phone network was jammed, but text messages (SMS) were going through fine) of news on the west side of the island – bodies floating in the streets, destruction, but also reports of minimal destruction in other areas. For example, the boys have a good friend who lives down near the southern most point of the island – and he said he there was minimal damage – he went swimming on a beach that had been relatively protected by a bay. But then he went up to the next areas on the west side, Kata and Karon, which are totally exposed to the open ocean and he said it was horrible. The boys have another friend who is staying at a beach resort up the Thai coast from Phuket and he got through last night to say that beach was badly hit.
We were/are in no danger at all from the wave. The damage on Phuket was limited to some of the western beaches and we live on the east side, which is much more sheltered by sitting to the left of the mainland. In fact, I’d say the tsunamis affected perhaps just 10% of the island – in terms of both area and numbers of people.
Phuket has a steep spine of mountains running north-south, so people on those low-lying western beaches had hills (with houses, hotels, and other human beings on them) readily available to run to. There are also plenty of available resources of food, shelter, and hospitals on this island – which were untouched. I know our school – Dulwich – was preparing last night for an influx of 1,000 evacuees (all tourist or not, I don’t know) to sleep in boarding houses and on the gymnasium floors. I sent over extra bedding, towels, and food. Must call and see what the needs are today. We didn’t go driving around yesterday as the roads traversing the island are narrow and windy and it would be all too easy to clog them.
It is the smaller islands, like Phi Phi, which sound much worse off – in that they’re small and the only development was on the beach front. So they don’t have any strong back-up resources on the same island. I also feel so much more sorry for the peoples of Sri Lanka and India – where the tsunami was so much stronger. Not to mention the Indonesians – it will be interesting to find out what really happened in that remote northern province of Aceh.
I must say, some of the news reports are a little exaggerated. We just saw on CNN a trailer that said: “Witness: Famed Laguna Beach Resort destroyed”. Yet yesterday late afternoon we were talking to the general manager of that hotel at his home two doors down. He’d been at his hotel all day and they had had damage, including one tourist drowned and the need to re-accommodate maybe a hundred guests – due to flooding of rooms closest to the sea – and lots of debris to clean up – but it was NOT destroyed, by any stretch of the imagination. Of the five 5-star hotels that make up the Laguna complex, one – the Dusit – was the worst hit with a whole restaurant structure destroyed, while another was completely untouched (except for the seaside hawkers’ flimsy booths being washed out to sea). As for food supplies, according to that hotel manager, all but one or two of the restaurants in the whole complex of hotels were up and running. And hotel guests had been asked to volunteer to double up in rooms and people were being very accommodating, he said. He seemed quite calm about it all – at least from the high-end tourist point of view.
Of course, the CNN/BBC TV reports focusing on tourists is a little bizarre – though understandable. People around the world watching the English-language broadcasts have more in common with English-speaking tourists than with the local inhabitants of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand. But, come on, losing all your holiday belongings is not quite the same as losing your life belongings. And the number of tourists dead will be minimal compared to the natives.
One silver lining of the event was that it was still early morning – by tourist holiday standards – so the beaches were not packed. How much worse it would have been at midday or in the afternoon. The news that will only gradually emerge will be about the people missing -- out on diving trips or out in boats for the day. The hope is that people are safe but stranded on little islands. All of our personal friends have been accounted for, but I do wonder when we get back to school whether there will be any deaths within our community.
We were due to go out on a friend’s boat at midnight last night for a two-day cruise. I must say I try not to think about the random timing of these things. What if we had been out on the sea? Would we have just bobbed along on the top of the tsunamis? Would we have capsized? Where might we have been when the thing hit?
Such is life…..
Love,
Katie
