Jake's+Story

===It was a sunny morning on Sunny Side beach in California. Temperatures were in the 90's and the waves were going to be small because of the receding water. I was surfing and my little kids were playing in the waves while my wife was watching them. There was an earthquake out to sea earlier that week, but we had made reservations to the hotel, and we were planning this vacation for months. The focus was 78 km below ground and the epicenter was in the middle of nowhere. My oldest kid who was 13 said that on the Moment Magnitude Scale it was a 9.3, and was urging us not to go." Money is money and money is tight" I had said " and a vacation like this costs good money" that ignorance cost me more than money. I had just surfed a terrible wave and was getting frustrated when I saw a giant wave. No, I thought, this isn't a normal wave. The realization hit me like a train. Tsunami! Alarms were going off all over the place. I couldn't outrun it no matter how hard I paddled! My life was flashing before my eyes! My 10th birthday! Senior Prom! My wedding! The birth of my first child! I came back to the present to witness the serene beauty of the Orange Plateau. Millions and billions of gallons of water washed over me. I hit something hurtling at insane speeds. Everything went black. 3 days and 3 nights have gone by. Supplies of food and water are seldom. Elves, elves, elves! They won't go away no matter what! I'm too weak to speak. I can't shoo them away! Stop! Stop this madness! I feel one more push of hunger pain and feel the world slipping away into the black. My vision waning, waning gone..."This has been one of the most deadly tsunami's in California history. The death toll is at 200,000 and rising. A mixture of numerous aftershocks and buildings sinking into the mud because of liquefaction. The Sunny Side area was hardest hit with a Mercalli rating of 10"===