I searched and could not find this story posted. I thought the "don't go back to the beach for six hours [after the first tsunami wave]" a pearl of wisdom that Freepers should know.
The tsunami took an hour and 50 minutes to reach Sri Lanka after being triggered by an underwater earthquake off Indonesia's Sumatra island, said Philip Liu of Cornell University in the United States. It took another 30 minutes to whiplash around the island to the southwestern coast, where it devastated Galle, the country's second-largest city.
Liu said they could've evacuated. Enough time to evacuate? Maybe yes, maybe no. Unfortunately, we'll never know.