Oregon daily emerald., January 19, 2005, Page 6, Image 6

Campus effort raises money for tsunami victims
TheASUO, College Democrats and OSPIRG joined
other University groups to put on Day of Tsunami Relief
BY MORIAH RALINGIT
NEWS REPORTER
As television images of tsunami
destruction poured in from Asia and
Africa a few weeks ago, junior Susan
Woodard sat transfixed by the grim
pictures of unimaginable devastation.
But there was one thing in particu
lar that she just couldn’t shake.
“I was just watching the news,”
she said. “I had been watching all
the orphaned children, and it was
breaking my heart. ”
Woodard wanted to do something,
but said she couldn’t make much of
an impact by herself.
“I thought if we got the whole
campus involved, it could be
something huge,” she said.
The next day, she was on the tele
phone recruiting student groups to
host a campus-wide relief campaign.
Her efforts culminated with Tues
day’s Day of Tsunami Relief, an event
that drew volunteers from a number
of student organizations.
Woodard wasn’t the only one
moved to action. Across campus, stu
dent organizations from the fraternity
Pi Beta Phi to the Oregon Student
Public Interest Research Group have
mobilized efforts to raise money for
the victims of the tsunami that dev
astated countries in Africa and Asia
in December.
The College Democrats, OSPIRG,
ASUO, the Asian Pacific American
Student Union, Students of the
Indian Subcontinent and the Inter
national Student Association joined
forces to put on yesterday’s event,
which included tables set up across
campus during the day and a
vigil in the EMU Amphitheater in
the evening.
Woodard said the tables she organ
ized generated less interest than ex
pected, but people were generous. In
total, the day raised $650.33.,
“Yeah, I’m so excited,” Woodard
said. “I think it was really wonderful.”
OSPIRG Statewide Programming
Director Kit Douglass said OSPIRG
had raised about $1,000 at the ta
bles on campus before Tuesday's
event, only a tenth of its ambitious
$10,000 goal. But Douglass added
that other fundraising events are in
the works.
FUNDRAISER, page 8
Lauren Wimer | Senior photographer
Tears come to sophomore Remi Nagata's eyes as she recounts her experience in a
disastrous earthquake 10 years ago, relating her experience to the recent tsunami.
Tsunami: Sam Nicols narrowly escapes being swept away in tsunami
Continued from page 1
the clear blue sea on the beach of
Tonsai. He had vacationed for a short
time in Thailand previously and was
excited about the extended time to
spend climbing and vacationing.
The earthquake hit at 7:58 a.m.,
but Sam, in an e-mail to friends and
family sent out the day after the
tsunami, said he didn’t feel it. He
thinks he was walking to the beach
when it happened. As he walked
down to the beach, he commented
that the tide had gone out extremely
fast, but didn’t think twice about it,
he wrote.
Around 11 a.m., waves started
rolling in over the horizon.
“When I first saw them they were
about 1km from the beach,” Sam
wrote. “We had quite a bit of warn
ing. It must have taken about one
min or more from the time I saw
them to when the first ones starting
coming in to the beach, but the tide
was so extraordinarily low that it
took 7 or 8 waves until the water
was really reaching up towards the
buildings. I had just packed up my
backpack with all of my stuff when
I saw them.”
Sam started running up the beach.
Then he stopped, put his bag down,
took out his camera and started snap
ping photographs. The pictures
almost cost him his life.
After taking a few pictures, he re
alized the waves were coming faster
and would hit the patio of the bar
where he was standing. Grabbing his
bag, he turned and ran up a path
toward the hills.
He only made it two meters before
the first wave hit him. The wave
slammed into him, sweeping his feet
out from under him and washing him
into the bar.
“I remember chairs banging into
me,” Sam wrote. “I got to my feet after
having been under for only one second
or so, and I was struck again from be
hind by another wave which pushed
me up against the bar. Without think
ing I jumped up into the DJ booth.”
He had lost his camera and the
things in his bag, but he was safe and
above the water level, he wrote. As he
evaluated his perch above the water,
he realized the Internet cafe and mas
sage parlor next door had washed
away and the roof of the Freedom Bar
he was in was beginning to sag.
Luckily for Sam, the worst of the
first waves had already hit, and he
was able to climb down from the
booth that had saved his life.
For the next 15 minutes, people
gathered on the beach to begin assess
ing the damage, he wrote. Then the
second set of waves rolled in. Sam ran
up the beach, made it to a ladder and
climbed to a platform above Tonsai
Wall, about 15 meters above the sand.
From there he and 10 other people
safely watched as the waves wreaked
havoc on the once serene beach.
The Nicols family didn’t know
any of that until the next morning
as they watched news reports begin
to flood in.
“We got the message and turned
on the TV that night but didn’t see
anything, and we weren’t sure exact
ly what Sam was talking about,”
John said. “Then the next morning
we saw the news and realized what
Sam meant.”
By the time the family knew what
had happened to Sam, the worst
was already over, and people were
beginning to work on relief and
reconstruction.
“Huge numbers of climbers/tourists
are helping the locals sift through the
rubble, rear down broken buildings,
and start to clean up,” Sam wrote.
“They are saving gas for generators so
the Thais have been giving away food
that has been spoiling, and in general a
very positive atmosphere is present. ”
While Sam was keeping his family
informed, he also informed the nation
about what was happening. A friend
who Sam met on Tonsai last year used
to work at CNN and passed on Sam’s
story. Sam did a phone interview on
CNN’s Larry King Live on Dec. 28.
"I was one of the few who decid
ed to actually stay around at the
place that I was,” Sam said on Larry
King Live. “When you just look
down the beach, there's a bunch of
longtail boats that are being re
paired, but otherwise life is getting
back to normal, the restaurants are
open again, the swimming pools are
out of order, but yeah, food is back
in, people seem very relaxed, and
it's a very positive outlook that I
take from it today.”
Sam and the rest of the people
in Tonsai were lucky. The water
purification systems were far
enough inland that they were not
damaged. The same night that food
began to run out, more food started
arriving.
Within two days of the tsunami,
life began returning to normal for the
vacationers and locals of Tonsai. De
bris was quickly picked up off the
beaches. Flattened buildings were
cleared, and usable materials were
separated and saved for rebuilding.
The rest was burned.
“We have been watching CNN and
BBC a lot,” Sam wrote. “And it’s quite
obvious to us that we got incredibly
lucky here in Tonsai.”
“Clean water was never a problem,”
Sam said in a telephone interview
from Thailand Tbesday. “Food got a
little tight, but never bad enough that
it was something I worried about.”
Weeks later, Sam is still in Tonsai
enjoying the end of his vacation.
Within the first two days, almost
all of the beach-going tourists
had left, but most of the rock
climbers stayed, both to help out
with relief and to continue to enjoy
their vacations.
“For climbers, the beach wasn’t a
big deal,” Sam said. “We didn’t want
to go swimming for a few days be
cause there could be a dead body
washing up, but after the first few
days that wasn’t a problem. We
helped clean up for a few days and
then started climbing again. ”
Sam said this is the perfect time
to take a vacation to most parts of
Thailand, especially in Tonsai.
“Beaches are clean, bungalows
and restaurants are working. Now is
actually a great time to vacation
here. Everything is up and running
and clean and really cheap,” Sam
said. “If the tourists don’t come
back, then 50,000 people will lose
their jobs.”
abolsinger@ dailyemerald. com
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