The big wave is coming!

With all due respect, last tsunami warning soon after Haiti’s earthquake brought back to my memory the tsunami warning in Santo Domingo in 1998.

“The big wave is coming! It could be only 50 miles from your house. They announced that we could have it at 2 o’clock in early morning”. “People are leaving Santo Domingo!”

Click.

“What is it honey? Who was calling at this hour?”

“Go back to sleep. It’s some nut saying that they are announcing some kind of tsunami that will start in San Pedro at one o’clock.”

“But tsunamis are unpredictable. They don’t just show up and go… I don’t care what”...

In 1998, category 5th Hurricane Georges attacked the south coast of the Dominican Republic with hundreds of dead and millions of loses. The population was at the edge when only one week after… soon after midnight a rumor spread that a big wave will be raising 50 Miles east Santo Domingo, in front of a small town named San Pedro de Macorís.

The 3.5-million capital of the Dominican Republic panicked. The announce of a big wave coming from the east –precisely at 2 o’clock in the morning- took thousands of people by surprise, even those living miles far from the coast even in 15-story high buildings so, they just get out -or go down- and start running north, away from the big wave: old ladies in pajamas, young ladies 'without' pajamas… guys in shorts, couples in raincoats (?) and my old friend Martha.

She, was watching TV, late, when a girlfriend called her:

“Martha! It’s Jennifer. Don’t you know that a tsunami will be rising at one o’clock in San Pedro and will be here in less than an hour?”

“A tsus…what?”

“A big wave. Where are your kids? Take them and run!”

“But this is a 9th floor!”

“Don’t use the elevator! Use the staircases! Hurry!”

Click.

Martha just thinks in water, lots of WATER, but since she had just bought an entire barbeque chicken with 'spicing' salsa, she woke up her 6-year old daughter (her 11-year old son was freezed in front of the TV watching the late, late, R show…) took her new expensive brown Prada purse and… throw the chicken inside, unwrapped… then opened the back door and head to the elevators.

“No! No the elevators! To the staircase!”

“Mami, what’s going on? Why are we doing in the service staircases? What wave?”…

“Shut up and run! The wave in coming!”

Floor Number Eight:

“But Mami… waves don’t arise in front of San Pedro. This is a 9th floor, a 8th floor… San Pedro is very far. It’s 50 miles east from the apartment…. Mami, what is this salsa coming out from your new Prada purse?”

Floor Number Six:

“Is…for…in…case, we…could…be, hungry. In the middle of the water, or swimming…”

“But Mami, you don’t know how to swim. And what is that chicken for? I see a lot of people around us. Look! Loretta is wearing only her panties! Same when she’s playing Nintendo with my brother”...

“The wave, Debbie, the WAVE, they said that"…

“But Mami, we live 10 Miles from the coast, and 350 feet over… besides, in a 9th floor.”

“I wanna go home!”...

One hour later, AT 3:45 am, Martha and little Debbie were at the front door of the building. Two dozen of neighbors around. Part inside, part over the front garden. Hundreds were still running westbound, some on their knees –arms spread- praying.

Over the boardwalks, teens and dads looking at all those half-naked women…

At six o’clock, with no wave in the horizon, the Caribbean sun, struck. Hundreds of people, oddly, looking down were running to their apartments. No naked anybody. Only some skinny employees walking to their jobs, drivers waiving at them, cyclists, joggers, a couple of drunks and the old garbage truck going slowly…

The Prada purse still should be there in Martha’s apartment garbage can…


Robert Dietsch