First-person account: The horror of surviving a tsunami

First-person account: The horror of surviving a tsunami: "Sitting around, day after Christmas, just staring at the TV, some movie we've seen before. Mid-morning, post-breakfast stupor controlling Karin and me. The power flickers and we moan. We'll have to get up and do something? Then we hear some yelling outside.

I look out the front door, still puffed up with pride about our new house, just 400 feet back from the beach. People are running up our street yelling. It looks like a fire at the large two-story resort that effectively blocks our view of the beach. Smoke and dust coming up and all these people.

Then a small line of really brown water comes rolling toward us. That's weird. But I reckon it must be some strange full-moon high tide. So we go upstairs so we don't get wet. I look out the window and try and take some pictures. There is a quiet rumble to it, like those white-noise generators that are supposed to help you sleep. The water is getting higher and higher and then it destroys our friend's cement bungalow! Then our front door caves in, and then water is coming up the stairs!

This was the last point my brain worked for a long time."

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