Another Day, Another Tsunami Warning

Three earthquakes throughout the Pacific today. They did generate a tsunami, and we did get a warning. They evacuated everything. They closed my office building - a three story cement structure that is probably the safest place in the Territory. Of course, they closed it and kicked everyone out. Then the police forced everyone to drive west. This created a massive traffic jam along the road sitting right next to the coast. Then, when everyone was good and packed in, like lambs for the slaughter, they cancelled the warning.

Red Cross Mutiny

Waiting with the Red Cross...and waiting and waiting and...

Yesterday we tried volunteering with the Red Cross. I went over there at 8 AM to meet up with some friends and we went to the Red Cross compound. They told us we would be getting training to set up tent shelters that FEMA had brought in. The training began around 9:00 and lasted about 30 minutes. Then we returned to the compound.

It was after this, that somebody with some inside knowledge informed us that FEMA wasn’t actually going to release any of the tents until Monday or Tuesday – a week after the tsunami. That left the Red Cross with no plan.

Despite our attempts to rally people, the Red Cross did nothing. From 9:00 AM to 2:30 PM, we sat in the compound under a tent, waiting for something to happen. As we waited we formulated a plan to ditch them and go out west to do something. Some of the Red Cross people encouraged us, saying that nothing was going to happen today, and what would happen would be worthless. Sure enough, when 2:30 hit, they began team building exercises; off-islanders would pair up with Samoans to break the ice. We had been sitting together for more than five hours, and they just thought of this.

It was the last straw. Some of the off-island volunteers helped us steal some trash bags and water bottles so we could head into the field.

We went back to Amanave and asked the matai if we could help clean up. He told us we could only help with the beach. Apparently, FEMA told them they were not allowed to do any cleanup until they had surveyed the area, which, of course, they had not done yet. In fact, it was clear that nobody had come through that area to do anything of any importance. It seems that all the aid got as far as Leone, but not any farther west, even though these villages were the hardest hit.


Keala picks up trash, with Chalani and Prarie in the background.

So we went down to the beach and just started picking up the trash. The bags filled up quickly, but our team grew just as fast. The kids from the village came down and helped, as well as some of the older guys. I think people just liked the idea of doing something.

Groups of us would pick up large sheets of metal, or old TVs, and haul them up to the road so the trash men could pick it up. Meanwhile, the adults were in the village setting up a large tent for church on Sunday.

All the trash was either put in bags, or separated as useable lumber, or scrap metal. There was no shortage. While we were out there until sunset, we barely made a dent. However, there was a small area of beach that looked almost clean, and more importantly, we got the villagers believing there was something they were allowed to do.

As we were packing up to leave, we saw the Red Cross kids come through the village. Apparently their big project was to go out and look at the damage; something that had been done by every organization for the last week.



Meanwhile, Meg also waited much of the day to do something. She hooked up with some mental health professionals. Like every other bureaucracy, there was a lot of talking about what they would want to do. Eventually they did go out. Meg went out with DOH to take surveys of living conditions in tsunami hit areas. They made sure people had access to medicine and drinking water and other things.

Meg went to get a feel of the mental health scene out there. Of course, people wanted to talk about what happened. There was a story about the body of a girl in Pago Pago which was found under a shipping container. Meg met with her parents. She also met a woman who was sleeping on the old slab of her house. She told them how they had found about six bodies in the stream behind her house the day before. In all, there were three mental health workers in the 20 teams that went out.

We both came home around seven exhausted. But it’s Saturday night, so we had to go out to dinner and drink. I had a guys’ night, Meg had a girls’ night, and we both had many drinks. She fell asleep before I got home, and then she went out volunteering again today. Today she set up a counseling plan for the schools which start tomorrow. This evening was the first time since Friday night we got to talk to each other.

Back to Work

Went back to work yesterday. All those people that had been arrested needed to be arraigned. Constitutional rights and all that. Unfortunately, the court had been flooded in the tsunami. While they did clean it up a lot, it still smelled like you would imagine a court would after it had a day of two feet of standing water, feces, oil, debris, and death. I sat there all morning and by the time I left around noon, I had a scratchy throat, watery eyes, burning nose. I was also extremely pale and dizzy. So, now I've got my friends in EPA working on testing that place out before I go in this morning to make sure it's safe.

After work I had to help save records from the registrar's office. These are all the Territory's vital records about everything. We put on our masks, and stuffed wet contracts and stuff into boxes which were then put in the massive freazers at the canneries. The theory being that if we need them again we can thaw them out page by page.

Meg hooked up with a woman doing psychological assessments for a non-profit and went to meetings all day yesterday. It looks like this could lead to fairly large projects for her and probably a job down the road. There is also the possibility of her working with FEMA.

Which means FEMA has arrived. They got here yesterday. Of course, they spent all day yesterday having meetings, and will spend all day today surveying the damage. Things which we have been doing since Tuesday. But they want to do it on their own, and don't want what we've already done. So people will have to wait and watch this happen all over again.

Aftershocks

A lot of crazy stuff has been going on since Tuesday. Apparently, the eastern power plant was completely washed away, so the east side of the island has no power. Tons of sewage from the treatment plant has leaked into the water so we have to boil everything for a while. Yesterday, me, Meg, and another guy went to Aminave and Leone on the west side to survey damage for EPA. Aminave was completely wiped out, maybe about 95%. Another village, Paloa, had nothing but the church left standing. Leone, which is a fairly sizable village, was in pretty bad shape too. We spent our time walking from house to house in Aminave. It was New Orleans and Mississippi all over again. Nothing but slabs and debris.

But today I have to work. The office is fine, but the courts are reeking of mold. I sat in there all morning and kind of feel sick now. But I'll try to give more info and photos this weekend.