Tsunami Warnings

Day 3 on the Road

So I woke up this morning a few blocks from the coast outside of San Luis Obispo at around 7:00 a.m.   My host said to me, “There a tsunami due to hit here around 7:45.

I said “have you had tsunami warnings here before?”

She said there’s been about 5 since she’s lived here (over 20 years) and she hasn’t seen one yet so we were probably ok.

Lower down the coast there had been tsunami warnings for earlier but nothing happened.  But further up the coast they were evacuating.

I said the only tsunamis I ever heard of in California were those rides in the amusement parks and she said yeah me too.

I had no problem with my drive to San Jose, but when I got there I learned that I had missed some very serious traffic by just a few hours with all the people evacuating the beach towns.

I also learned that Santa Cruz had been completely evacuated, and that they did experience a mild tsunami.  Some boats were damaged and 3 people (spectators, possibly potential Darwin-award candidates) had been washed out to sea.  2 of them were rescued.

I had almost had a gig scheduled for Santa Cruz tonight.  But very fortunately I ended up in San Jose, which is much more inland.

Turnout was light. Even some people who had tickets didn’t come. Someone said you should never book a show the day of an earthquake (tsunami, locusts, etc.). People just aren’t as inclined to go out.  I’ll keep that in mind for next time.

Anyway, the gig went great.  Now I’m staying in a luxury hotel where I got a smokin’ deal through hot-wire.com which I’m so glad I booked a week ago, because tonight I wouldn’t’ve been able to get a room because of all the people stranded who can’t get back to Japan.

I’m going to bed now and sleeping late tomorrow if I can.