Tackling the Globe…

When Tracy moved to Tullahoma when we were but 11, we weren’t immediate friends. In fact, in later years, we found out that each of us referred to the other (in our own minds) as “that bleached blonde freak” and “that stone-faced Asian girl trying to steal my thunder.” You see, I was at the top of the gifted program in my school, an accolade of which I was quite proud (nerd alert), and Tracy relocated with her family from Saudi Arabia, where her dad was stationed in the Air Force, and quickly moved in on my territory. I’m not sure at what point we became friends, but it was within the first year they lived in town after we both managed to get over our egos and, after that, we became inseparable. She became one of the only childhood friends I kept up with over the years—typically, we only see each other while at home for Christmas, though we exchanged visits in NYC and DC while I was still an East Coast resident—and today she’s a U.S. diplomat who is about to start her worldwide tour, first with a two-year appointment in Japan, then possibly Afghanistan and, from there, who knows.

She’s an amazing individual and as humble as they come. In fact, last night while all our high school friends were gathered in my bonus room catching up, I had to be the one to share Tracy’s most recent achievement—an ultra marathon; that’s 50 miles—with all of our friends. She’s also an accomplished pool player, having competed in the national championships when we were still undergrads, as well as the former class valedictorian, National Merit Scholar, etc. etc. etc. *insert any honor you can think of here.* Basically, she’s the ultimate smarty pants, with a witty personality to boot.

But that’s neither here nor there. The point of this story is about what happened five years ago on this day. Tracy and I had temporarily overlapped at the University of Tennessee after I transferred, wreaking havoc on Knoxville for our shared eight months, and then she left for Tokyo for the final year of our collegiate careers. I was working on the news desk at the local paper when I caught wind of the tsunami. I knew Tracy was vacationing in Thailand for the holidays and immediately panicked. I called her parents and couldn’t reach them, as they were in Arizona for the holidays. The following 24 hours were stressful, the not knowing and not being able to reach anyone who knew, until I happened to be watching CNN and catch a glimpse of Tracy in the background of a live report from a ship in Phuket. When I finally heard from her days later, her tale of triumph in Thailand (I’m all about alliteration, clearly) was a fascinating one, and I ended up writing it up for a host of Southern newspapers.

Here is an adapted version, sliced and diced to make it more interesting for you all:

On the afternoon of Dec. 26, Tracy M. and some friends were sea kayaking in the Surin Islands when the earth began to rumble. Tracy immediately got out of the water, although she had no idea what was happening.

“I heard the loud roar of the wave before it even hit,” she recalled. “I was out of the kayak when it finally did hit, and it pushed me up into the jungle and into some rocks. The water rose over 10 feet in a matter of seconds.”

But Tracy’s initial instinct wasn’t to seek safety.

“At first I thought it was a regular wave you could play in,” she commented. “I ran toward it, but when it hit me, it knocked me over, rose really fast and pushed me over 100 meters in a few seconds. Then I thought maybe playing in it was a bad idea.”

When the waves receded, Tracy thought the worst was over and that it was safe to leave her temporary shelter and check out the damage.

“When I went to see what happened, a much larger wave came with no warning and knocked me to my knees far from the shore,” she said. “I managed to pull myself to the top of the rock as the water rose furiously.

“For a little while, I had to cling to the top of it as the water splashed over me, almost covering me completely. I decided I had to push off and try to make it back to shore or risk being pulled into the ocean with it.”

Although she was still unsure what was going on, Tracy somehow made it back into the jungle and “scrambled up a broken tree” as means to escape the waves.

“We thought it was just really quick tides after the first wave because the moon was full, but after the second one when we saw boats and tents floating by, we thought maybe there had been an earthquake,” she said.

Despite all the commotion, Tracy and her Canadian travel companion, Josh, still had time to perform a couple heroic feats.

“After the first wave, we saw two other kayaks in the water — one was tipped over with a man and baby in the water and no lifejackets. The other wasn’t much better with two older women and a 4-year-old girl,” Tracy recollected. “Josh swam out and grabbed the man and baby and got the other kayak, too.”

While Josh tended to the overturned kayak, Tracy utilized her bilingual skills to help a Japanese woman who didn’t speak English find her husband.

“The Japanese woman named Kyoko had been separated from her husband,” Tracy said. “He had been snorkeling when the wave came, and they had been separated. After the second or third wave, we went to the beach and found him. He was cut up a bit by the coral and had almost died, so we brought him to his wife.

“It was a really emotional scene, and as gratitude for helping them, they invited me to come stay with them in Osaka when I return to Japan.”

After they had completed their good deeds for the day, Tracy and her friends hiked back to the resort area, only to find most of it had been demolished. All that remained was a frenzy of chaotic tourists running around in lifejackets, she said.

Tracy ran up into some mountains and hid with the other surviving tourists in the jungle until the waves completely stopped.

“After the third wave, I came down and saw that nothing was left — large buildings had disappeared, boats were far up on the land sandwiched between the remains of buildings’ foundations, and tents and instant noodles were floating everywhere.”

There was nothing left for the survivors to do but wait it out. More than six hours passed before it was finally safe to come down from the mountain. A cruise ship, The Ocean Princess, was sent to pick up the survivors and transport them to Phuket, which had been hit hard by the tsunami. On the trip over, Tracy said miles and miles of debris were all that was visible and included everything from corpses to floor rugs, desks and other household furniture.

“The debris going into Phuket was crazy, and seeing how fast the wave rose was ridiculous,” she said. “It was like something out of a movie — literally a wall of water. It was strange, too, when we could hear the wave for 15 minutes before we actually saw it. It sounded like a jet engine.”

Tracy considers herself lucky to be alive, as more than 150,000 residents and tourists of Asia and Africa were not so fortunate.

“I was a little skeptical (of whether I would make it) when I was hanging onto my rock with waves on my head,” she said. “Also, once everyone was in the jungle, there was no way we could know if the next wave would be able to touch us. We were pretty high, but we could see the water rising through the trees below us.”