March 11, 2015 - 4 years post Tsunami

Two years ago, I posted about the recovery efforts in out harbor on the second anniversary of the Tsunami that first attacked Japan and then destroyed our harbor and left one person dead here after being swept out to sea, and another dead just North of here in the Brookings, Oregon Harbor from a heart attack as the Tsunami swirled into the harbor there.

http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/2013/03/two-years-after-tsunami-in-crescent-city.html

adding the signage to tell people the harbor has more than crab boats here

Watching the slow but steady improvement from crushed boats and crumbled docks to a functional, and prettier harbor than we had before has been fascinating to me, and I hope you enjoy these photographs as well.

now when the water rises, so will the docks

reflecting 

a picture from the information signs here now

and just after 

from 1930 when there was only a bay and a couple piers

from the viewing deck this year

just south of the harbor

and that lighthouse has withstood not only this Tsunami and the Monster of March 28, 1964 but the thirty or more small ones that come through unremarked 

last spring when the Tall Ships passed through

a couple years ago, after dredging the boat basin

the big equipment we've had in and out saved the harbor

Spring 2013

much more work needed done a couple years ago

and now it is beautiful to see how far they have come and not only have the people and boats returned but so have the Pelicans and loons, seals and Sea Lions

Autobiography Challenge: Day 23 & 24

After Dad's Funeral

This one, the story is in the silence and the gaping hole where no one stands behind us.

Guatemala Collage

After my Dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, both Mom and Dad's worlds narrowed down, until the hospital bed in the living room became their universe. Mom wouldn't allow any help except my brother, no nurses or hospice, and so when my Dad did die, everything that her being had focused on for just under a year, was suddenly gone too.

Gradually she began to change and grow and be open to new adventures again, so that 6 years after his death, when she called and asked me if I would meet her and my brother Lance in Guatemala with my two boys, if she bought the tickets, I wasn't too surprised. Greg couldn't go because of work, but it would just mean pulling the boys from the last week of their 2nd and 3rd grade school years.

As a teacher, I am supposed to believe that missing school is horrible - but the last week of school is a lot of running outside with assistants and parent volunteers doing field days while the grades are done and the classrooms readied for summer. This seemed like an experience that would give them a lot more than just staying in school an extra week.

There were some safety issues, the previous year the group had had their bus blocked by piles of burning tires and groups of protesters. less than 10 years ago the Town we were visiting had a massacre of the very Mayan tribe we were going to be helping rebuild cement homes with. Now they were officially an independent zone where the Spanish Guatemalan Army would give them autonomy, but still . . . It was my "babies" I was taking there. We were warned to never talk to the children because parents were very fearful that we might kidnap them.

We went, by plane to Houstan and then Guatemala City, and by painted old school bus to Panajachel, and by motorboat across the lake and through the bullrushes to Santiago, Atitlan. Then they told us the building we were to help build had just been completed and asked if we would mind volunteering at a Mayan school for the week. It was perfect for us. We shared pictures and songs and games that needed no words with children who spoke Mayan at home but Spanish at school. Every day we feasted on wonderful fruits and by the time we were ready to go home my Mom was wearing the hand woven Mayan Skirt and my sons had friends and an adopted "grandma"

Running for Tuna & Harbor Repair

Back in March of 2011, I had two boys at home, in High School, when school was cancelled due to the earthquake and the knowledge that once again, a tsunami was heading toward Crescent City.

That Tsunami hit Japan a lot more harshly than it hit Crescent City, CA but it was no friend to the fishing fleet and the commercial harbor here.

That morning my oldest son, woke me to tell me, "Mom. the schools are closed today because we will probably get a tsunami.  I'm going fishing."

and his brother,

one year younger, decided it was a day to be spent sleeping.

They have never made the same choices, but I love them both so much that becoming a Mom, twice in 12 months, was like a tsunami to the heart, that wiped out everything I had once considered important and rebuilt in its place a whole new world.

Now my fisherman son has done two season's fishing on a commercial boat, one tuna and one crab season, and as the next tuna season has just gotten up and running, he is happy to be back on the Barbara Marie again

But the Crescent City Harbor is one gigantic construction zone at this point, replacing the docks and dredging, and repairing and trying to become able to withstand the next Tsunami, and there always will be a next tsunami here.

This blog has previous posts about tsunamis in Crescent City

http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/2013/03/two-years-after-tsunami-in-crescent-city.html

http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/2013/02/one-year-after-tsunami-we-shared-with.html

http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/2011/10/crescent-city-still-dredging-out.html

http://echo-echosvoice.blogspot.com/2011/03/tsunamis-do-more-than-wave-at-crescent.html