Posted on 01/01/2005 1:41:44 AM PST by nickcarraway
PHUKET, Thailand - Quick-thinking 10-year-old Tilly Smith is being hailed as a hero after saving her parents and dozens of fellow vacationers from the deadly tsunami - thanks to a school geography lesson.
Tilly warned the doubting adults at a resort that a massive tidal wave was about to strike - just minutes before the deadly tide rushed in and turned the resort into rubble. Tilly's family, from Surrey, England, was enjoying a day at Maikhao Beach last Sunday when the sea rushed out and began to bubble.
The adults were curious, but Tilly froze in horror.
"Mummy, we must get off the beach now!" she told her mother. "I think there's going to be a tsunami."
The adults didn't understand until Tilly added the magic words: "A tidal wave."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Me, I found it amazing and very sad that the water level dropping like it did was not understood by everyone instantly.
Still find it amazing. Next I'll hear that people cannot tie their shoes.
Sadly, I agree with you.
Smart girl- maybe there is hope for kids these days.
PING
That's pure head knowledge; hardly anyone - on that day - had personal experience of a tsunami. Now every man jack of the people living near the Indian Ocean has the flavor of what a tsunami is because they are at least distantly related to a victim of one.It has to be amazing to see the initial withdrawal of the ocean, exposing the sea floor which otherwise is never open to inspection. You would have to wrench yourself away from the sight; it's not only the 10 year-old girl but her parents who are heroes for understanding the girl's warning and doing exactly what was necessary instead of what curiousity would otherwise impell them to do. And not only to evacuate themselves, but to be able to convince others to do so as well.
I read James Mitchner's Hawaii just like you did, and I therefore have had the head knowledge that the little girl had, for about forty years. I like to think that I would therefore have made the connection between the incredible sight of the bare sea floor and the terrible danger impending, and turned tail. But I warrant that not everyone who enjoyed the amazing sight too long, and was subsequently engulfed, was intellectually totally ignorant of the phenomenon. I don't even assume that they were all Democrats . . .
One must understand that there are many people who are not used to being near water or the ocean. I have known people that get vertigo the first time they see the ocean. unless you live near a coast you don't know what is going on..
There is nothing excepting head knowledge.
Knowledge is of the outside world, not of the inside.
Still can't believe that those people did not run for the highest ground as soon as the water level dropped enough to notice. Next you will tell me that they were all qualified to vote.
Adults heeding the wisdom of a child. Good Sign.
I think most people have no idea what is going on, whether they live inland or on the coast. I know for sure that my own understanding is a weak reed to lean on.
The governments of these third world nations should have required all students to learn about tidal waves...that when the ocean water recedes so drastically...get everyone you can yell at to move to high ground....some kind of international sign postings all along the coasts of these countries showing receding oceans waters as extreme danger. This massive loss of life rests squarely on the shoulders of these tourist money loving countries. You really do take your life in your own hands when you visit them.
That might helped the parents heed a daughter that may have been very proud of her grades.
I had a similar experience with a hotel fire -- parents did not want to leave immediately. It was just before my junior year in high school.
I ended up grabbing my 3 year old brother and heading down 10 flights of stairs. It was a deadly Howard Johnson's fire in New Orleans circa summer 1970.
Parents got dressed and then came down later.
I was trained not to delay in evacuating in a fire from Boy Scouts. I guess I was also rebellious then.
Still wonder to this day if I did the right thing -- but by training, you are supposed to leave a fire.
Saving someone's life creates a lot of merit points in the cosmic ledger book. Good on you !
I think that it’s dependent on the “6th sense” that the press is attributing to the animals in the area that got away, also called COMMON sense! Maybe a kind of mental numbness and myopia that comes with age and maturity suppresses it.
The history channel runs specials on tsunamis at least yearly, and this receding of the ocean is always mentioned. But apparently not everyone watches the History Channel.
Why aren’t those sign posted in our 1st world country? While we’re at it, increase the size of the warning on my microwave popcorn that says, “Contents are hot when heated!”
I don't disagree, but I've been stuck by the number of stories of western survivors who were warned by the locals. I think in most cases the local people didn't know exactly what was happening, and certainly didn't understand the magnitude of it, but they figured on seeing the ocean suddenly recede tens or hundreds of meters, it was time for them and their western patrons to get the h*ll out of Dodge.
Bubble? That's the first reference I've seen to the sea "bubbling". I've read extensively about this disaster, but I still don't have a clear picture of exactly how the water behaved and looked from those beaches. Lots of broad descriptions, but short on specifics.
I do think there's one main thing that contributed to the lack of "common sense" evacuations: there was evidently no tidal wave. From what I've read, the sea receded, but there was no massive wall of water on the horizon. The tsunami was beneath the sea and merely swelled up as it approached shore, like a very fast high tide. Absent a visible threat, it doesn't surprise me that so many people missed the impending danger. We are attuned to react to threats we can see, hear, smell or feel.
(This is meant in no way to diminish the good fortune of having a well educated youngster in the family....Good on you, Tilly!)
At the end of the novel Hawaii there is a vivid description of a tsunami. I read the book first over 40 years ago, and believe me, I would have headed for the hills when I saw the sea recede.
You don't get it ....do you.....
When ocean waters recede...you run like hell for high ground!
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