Soi
Bangla is the major bar beer area and that evening
I went there. There was not really much of a choice
if you wanted any social contact because it was
the only street that seemed to have any person or
social activity. The bars were still open but the
workers seemed more desperate. What do you do after
a disaster, go home and make no money, or stay put
and try to make even a little money? Several bars
and other businesses had "for sale" signs.
There
are many ghost stories in Phuket. One ghost story
goes like this. A taxi driver picks up some foreign
tourists who ask to go to the airport. They negotiate
a price and get in the cab. After a few moments
the taxi driver looks in the back seat and there
is no one there. Another story concerns hearing
and seeing foreign tourists playing in the shallow
coastal waters and then looking back, and there
is no one there. I understand the superstition because
the feeling of death and sadness was still lingering
there more than a month later. You feel it in the
eerie silence and the slow deliberate pace of survivors.
Everywhere you go there is a question, did someone
die here, I asked the people at my hotel, did anyone
die here, and they said no. I asked what it was
like and they said, picture hordes of people running
up the street screaming.
The
tourists aren't there any more. One day you are
worried about an argument with your wife or boyfriend
or whether you will get a new job you applied for.
And the next day you are searching morgues for your
children, or wondering how you are going to pay
back your bank mortgage when your store and merchandise
are no longer there.
Driving
back to the airport I was reading the newspaper
article that explained that the new South Asia Tsunami
Center was going to be set up in either Thailand
or India and the convention was this weekend. So
far, ten million baht was already earmarked for
the center, and new money was being sought. Maybe
that's why all the stuffed shirts were on the plane
when I arrived. I looked out of the car window and
on my right side was a huge bureaucratic building
and the sign read, "Southern Thailand Meteorological
Center."
I
lived in Hawaii which has a Tsunami warning system.
It is comprised of signs on the beach explaining
what to look for, a sudden receding of the water
which is the warning sign. There are also loudspeakers
on the beach. The system is tested periodically
with a wailing siren.
What
is needed for a Tsunami warning system? The earthquake
tracking system is already set up, and is located
in Hawaii. The day of the Tsunami the earthquake
monitoring center registered a 9.0 Richter scale
earthquake in the Andaman Sea. This was public knowledge
and not a secret. Hours passed before the Tsunami
hit Thailand, although Indonesian had much less
warning. It seems like an early warning system would
be someone in communication with the Earthquake
monitoring system and when there is an earthquake
under the sea, he presses a button and the sirens
on the beach let out a waiting sign and lifeguards
tell everyone to evacuate. But the bureaucrats will
probably require meetings, committees, expert analysis
and of course buku bucks to get this system working.
