May 17
26 Pacific Rim nations participated in a tsunami-warning drill to test response.
SMS signals were sent to telephones on the Eastern Seaboard. “Run to high ground.”
The message came 5 minutes late, which was better than the last test, which was postponed four hours for a high political official (Not Miss Thailand 2006) to tell the people how he had made them safer after the Phuket big wave. ”We have a program for everyone to get an inner tube. Only 10 baht.”
For this alert thousands responded to the delayed warning and fled their houses for the safety of high ground, but in Pattaya no one moved a muscle. Beach vendors hawked three day old shrimp and baht buses clogged Beach Road. Police seemed to be unaware of a test. One replied, “Look sea. Smooth same glass.”
When I told my friend Roger about the alert, he expressed surprise, “Heck , I didn’t know the Gulf of Siam had waves.”
He ordered another beer.
Unfortunately a Thai navy vessel was lost during the exercise. The crew thought the drill was the real thing and abandoned ship. Somehow the seacocks were pulled in the rush to the lifeboats and ship sank within minutes. No lives were lost, although the captain has not returned to base to answer an inquiry into the incident. He phoned in his excuse. “No big wave. Ghost wave sink ship.”
A Chinese firm has already salvaged the ship to be smelted for the production of tsunami alert buoys.
Government officials declared the alert a success. One deputy under-secretary for inland fisheries stated, “No one in Isaan was affected by the big wave.”
A USA adviser was more cautious with his report. “Sure, no waves hit the eastern Seaboard or Isaan, but it was not exactly 100% successful. But Jesus moves in strange ways and we are now in negotiations with the Chinese to provide Thailand with warning buoys with plastic Jesus lamps. Plus we have a loan program on inner tubes.”
Obviously everyone in power takes the potential for disaster seriously.
I got three inner tubes already.
Trying to find one for my dog.