Tsunami Alert! Panic time on the homestead!

When you homestead on the Pacific Ring of Fire, you expect and prepare for the occurrence of natural disasters. It comes with the territory.

There is always a chance of the nearest volcano erupting causing evacuation due to drifting ash cloud. We live approximately 40 km from an active volcano, one of 9 in the country. Far enough away we would hope from any potential lava flow.

Our property backs onto a salt flat and there is a shear drop of about 2 meters. There have been occasions when it has flooded and the water rose to within one meter of our property line. Hence the huge retaining wall at the back of our property. It was built with a vengeance since it also has to with stand earthquakes. Any idea how long it takes to build a 60 meters by 5 meters by half meter thick concrete and iron wall by hand?

I did mention earthquakes. But what about seaquakes which cause tsunamis?There are risks of those as well. But these are risks we are willing to take for our life style. These are what we call calculated risks. It is no different than living on an island in the Caribbean and hoping you will never get hit by a hurricane. Odds are that it will happen sooner or later, so you have a plan in place.

So on our homestead we have several plans depending on events. One for our daily lives which can be varied according to the day’s events. We are flexible. The second for earthquakes. Happen without warning so have plan for after the event depending on damages. So far its just been some mild shakes.

The third plan is for seaquakes. Do we evacuate or stand ground? Plans for either. Depends on where the quake occurs and how far away. We do get notices for these, but if they were to happen in front of our beach there would be little or no warning.

Hurricanes we can have up to five days notice that they are heading our way. We have had tropical storms and one hurricane category 2 since moving here. We did not evacuate and battened down the hatches. Loud winds and lots of driving rain in both cases.

It is normal for us to be prepared and aware of what is happening around us. We are signed up for hurricane watches and tsunami alerts via our cell phones. We watch the weather and the tides. It is just as routine for us as opening your drapes and looking out at the sunrise. It becomes a habit.

Last night was a good example of how this works for us. At about 9:31 pm our phones went off in unison. This usually means a problem. Check messages. Tsunami alert. Risk High. 7.8 seaquake off the coast of Honduras. Swan Island.

Unusual. We felt no shakes. If a quake is close we have tremor at least. Nothing. Okay, need to check quick. If it is close to us we have may be 15 minutes time. My son calls from Managua. He’s gotten the alert too.

Fire up the computer and check USGS. 7.6 seaquake off the coast of Honduras, Swan Island, Caribbean Sea. Okay. Potential tsunami is for opposite coast to us. We can relax a little. There are 6 more after shocks in the Caribbean Sea.

We feel really bad for the islands off the coast of Honduras. They are all small and rely on fishing and tourism for income. We watch and wait for another hour. The alerts have been canceled. No tsunami occurred. Something to be very grateful for.

We head to bed knowing that the system works and our plans are secure. If it had been and actual tsunami we would have evacuated to higher ground.

When those alerts do come, we are on autopilot. We know what we need to do and how quickly. It is not something that you would snooze through. No matter how prepared you are it always comes as a rude awakening.

all photos in this post are courtesy of Pixabay