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THEY KNEW THE TSUNAMI WAS COMING Timing wise it seemed odd two weeks after the South Asian devastation, cheaptickets.com's tropical get-a-way advertisement was on the same page as Merriam Webster's online dictionary definition for "tsunami." With one hundred and fifty thousand dead from "an unusually high sea wave that sometimes follows an earthquake," the death toll from the deep continues to mount. The ad featured a sling back chair reflected in ocean waters at sunset on a Shangri-la beach. The clerk at Route 110's Washington Mutual looked at me from across her freestanding pod, bank management's idea of making clerks customer friendly. "Looks like California stands to gain a 6th season, Tsunami," she said. The other five are earthquake, mudslide, riots, heat wave, rain and fire. She asked, referencing the $1 billion dollars in aid raised for South Asia, if I knew the exchange rate for bahts to dollars. "January 7th, one US dollar was worth 39.155 Thai bahts." "The average Thai worker makes less than $2 a day," she said, "For every action, you know, there is a reaction. A Tsunami in Asia has a good chance of bouncing back at Beverly Hills." She wondered aloud who will donate dollars to California's possible affected out-of-work actors making ends meet waiting tables for $5.75 an hour minimum, plus tips? Sandra Bullock? Spielberg?" Or maybe, the usual suspect, America's government. The clerk was unaware science, expensive to support being focused on building newer and better equipment advancing technology, is far from being exacting. She did not know scientists have yet to figure out a ratio between quake magnitude and wave size. Nor did she know Northern California Humboldt University geologist Lori Dengler said "A magnitude 6.5 or 7 earthquake could produce a landslide that will knock out five states. one of the most crippling events the US will ever see." Or that, a Tsunami hit America, 1964. 21' waves from a 9.3 earthquake striking Alaska, hit Crescent City, California, killing 120, damaging ports in Los Angeles. 1997's Northridge's earthquake, January 17, registered almost 9 on the Richter scale, I was told high atop Mammoth Mountain in Northern California months later. A scientist on vacation said the reported number was smaller because powers that be didn't want to scare the people into thinking "the big one" people talk about could actually become a reality. The Tsunami Warning Center near Hawaii's Pearl Harbor correctly predicted the 9.5 quake in Chile. The Center, over 56 years old, got this Tsunami wrong. Human error, in judgment. Seven hours before it hit, somewhere around Hawaii lunchtime, the Center's director knew the Tsunami was coming. One scientist, noticing a spike on the Coco Islands seismometer, issued a routine notice of quake that occurred outside the Pacific. He wrote "No destructive Tsunami threat exists based on historical earthquake and Tsunami damage." Incredible amounts of money sunk into state of the art equipment monitored by leading experts in the field, the best the Center's director, Charles McCreery, could offer was, "We didn't realize the scale of the thing." Asked why the Center didn't call any of the hotels on the beaches to warn them of imminent danger, McCreery, without stating if he owned for easy reference Yellow Pages of tourist destinations likely to be affected by natural forces, said a lot of things should have been done. Nor did he state if the scientists ate lunch in or out, that day. It was too late by the time the second notice warning of Tsunami activity was sent out. The huge mass of water surged to the surface, spreading outward sending waves to Mauritius and Madagascar, the coast of Africa, four or five hours after the quake erupted under Alaska's ocean floor, 7pm Hawaii time. The Tsunami crossed the Bay of Bengal to India in less than two hours. The monster quake's gash, hundreds of miles along the Indian Ocean floor, sent waves racing 500 miles an hour with the energy of a hydrogen bomb, faster than it takes an jetliner to cross the ocean. Scientific Tsunami warning systems are simple. Undersea wave detectors register changes in water pressure. Data is passed on to buoys then to satellites. Scientists confirm the Tsunami then warn affected nations by notifying the public through broadcast alerts or sirens. The chain of command works until scientists get the prediction wrong. Then it usually becomes the equipments fault, for being outdated, too few staff, rarely referenced is the old fashioned adage, "the information being only as good as the person who entered it." Tsunami predicting seems less of an exacting science, than it being more like a golfer reading a green for their short game where a single blade of grass alters the course of their ball heading to the hole. Indonesia's Bureau of Meteorology and Geophysics, Dr. Prih Harjad, received notice the quake hit an island 1200 miles east of the epicenter, "the old fashioned way." His nephew telephoned him Sumatra was gone. Harjad blames his government. They decided against installing a Tsunami warning system because Japan would not give Indonesians $2 million they requested to set up monitors in the Indian Ocean, citing their denial was predicated on the area being less vulnerable to undersea earthquakes that set off Tsunamis. Harjad, it seems, was not asked nor did he volunteer if he owned a cat, a dog or a bird. There are no "Tsunami Country" caveats in cheaptickets.com's advertisements just a plethora of sensuous visuals inducing "take-me-away" escapes. No red rubber stamped words on tickets advising paradise can be perilous. No list of what to do in the event natural, or other, disasters hit, ie. location of nearest hospital, native language for "doctor," "need water" or "help me please" translations in the native tongue of the locale. cheaptickets.com website policy does state, "We may change any or all content on the Site, including, but not limited to, products, programs, and/or services described on or offered through the Site, without notice and without liability." Within days of the disaster, tourists on the beaches ghoulishly taking "we were here" photos to send home. Cancellations were out of the question for trips booked and pre-paid for. Travellers could have bought travel protection from "Travel Guard" for "Trip Cancellation & Interruption, Up to total cost of Travel; Travel Delay, Actual costs up to $500; Medical Expense Expenses up to $10,000; Emergency Medical Transportation Expenses up to $20,000." The value of a life or dismemberment? $25,000, max. cheaptickets.com is not responsible for "any disruption of travel-related products and/or services resulting from" amongst other things "climactic aberrations" and/or "events of force majeure ie. Those beyond our reasonable control." Such as Tsunamis. The lady sitting next to me in Huntington Station NY receiving a pedicure from an Asian manicurist noted South Asian crystalline sandy beaches were promoting ardor for all ages in the travel magazine she was reading. We looked carefully together. No graphic little men on signs pictured with Hokusai stylized waves. It was only after the horror, news magazines showed the warning signs posted on Thai beaches, alongside the words, only in English, "Tsunami Hazard zone, in case of earthquake head for high ground or inland." Only. 61 people in Hilo failed to heed warnings to head towards higher ground. They drowned. More often tourists trust travel agents they paid for the travel into potential Twilight Zones. Human nature is not to believe strangers doling free advice like shrieks of "run for your life." California animal behaviorist, Dr. Larry Lachman says humans and fellow mammal share an inherited hard and soft wired survival response. It seems animals use theirs better. Animals survived the Tsunami because they sensed barometric changes in the atmosphere prior to the storm. Mounting evidence is the humanity's tragedy of loss of basic instincts due to greater reliance on emerging technologies eclipsing the tragic reality responsible individuals failed to act. People perished because they were ill prepared to survive when electricity failed their cell phones, lap tops, Palm Pilots, Blackberries, television, radio and up-to-the-minute news posted on the inaccessible Internet. Clerks at Beverly Hills' Canon Drive Rite Aid, during a blackout, did not know how to calculate sales manually without electronic cash registers tabulating transactions for them. Westwood's police department, 9-11, struggled with inter-enforcement communications when, in wake of the attack, were ordered off-radio. A tourist from the Hauge, Arlette Stuip, was vacationing at Khao Lak, Thailand. Stuip confirmed tourists were told the Tsunami was coming. Tom told her. Arlette admits she almost died because she did not want to listen to Tom. Stuip's hearing is just fine, it seems. Just selective. Tom is her husband. She preferred enjoying the Thai Curry her waiter was bringing her, not wanting "to hurt his feelings." Animals heightened hearing is theoretically one of their main survival detection tools, "infrasonic" used to describe sound frequencies below human hearing range while "ultrasonic" comprises sound frequencies above human range. Stuip does not know if she cost the waiter his life. Stuip wrote Thai people stared watching the seawater receding rapidly. Tourists walked out, looking for shells, tossing balls and taking photos. Knowing another wave was coming, Thai heroes gave their lives, running into danger, dragging back bathing suited tourists from the emerging dry seabed. Stuip wrote, prelude to the tidal wave erupting the sea off the coast, the ground rumbled. The 9.0 seismic blast ignited the most powerful earthquake in 40 years. "Hell broke loose." 300 metres out, high water wall came crashing, over the reef. Then, the second wave came. Choo, his eyes red from crying, was one of many Thai, despite being victims themselves, who interrupted searching for their families to provide aid to tourists. A Dutch snorkler described the wave following the speedboat he was in for twenty minutes. Their captain dropped passengers off, turning round to find his brother. The second wave "swallowed" him. The numbers of dead continue to climb. People that live and work alone may remain unreported for a while, until they are missed. If ever. All 2050 of the Jarawa tribe survived. One tribesman, Ashu said in his native tongue, "We don't like people from outside." They escaped inland India's isolated island, living off coconuts in the Balughat forest. Indonesian government officials speculate Jarawa's ancient knowledge of wind, sea and birds saved them. CNN reported a village in Thailand survived the Tsunami intact. Villagers fled before the wave hit, forewarned by their domesticated birds. Dr. Carl Darby an avian expert with The Center For Specialized Veterinary Care in Westbury said birds are better equipped to deal with danger than mankind because they have five senses to detect natural disasters. "Birds," Darby explained, "monitor weather changes to avoid flying in potentially unsafe conditions. One native islander recalled hearing a purr sound he says he never heard before. The waters swept him up because he went back to working on his fishing nets. He did not know that sound was a warning to run for his life. When the waves pulled back, 21 year old school teacher, Marsue McGinnis, walked her students out onto the exposed reef of sand and coral. She was ill prepared for surviving the Tsunami. Her dependency on modern technology for information robbed this teacher of her basic instincts to protect. To teach and to pass on survival information to. No one taught her receding waters exposing sand beds was an advance signal a tidal wave was about to hit. McGinnis lives with the recurring nightmare of watching helplessly as students she failed were swept away to their deaths. Marsue did not understand she was witnessing nature's lesson as dogs fled to save their lives. Seismic sound and pressure waves are released during an earthquake. Primary and secondary waves move through solid rock and liquid layers of the earth, pushing and pulling rock they move through, like sound waves push and pull air. Naturalist Jack Hanna believes animals work in concert, fish sense the earthquake, warn the birds who warn land animals. Animals hear primary waves and alarm calls from other animals from far distances, humans cannot. Sensing the earthquake, they flee to safe hiding on higher ground to avoid danger and dying. Hanna, wanting animal behavior monitored so people can be warned of future natural disasters, did not mention if animals read the Tsunami signs humans ignored. South Asia's loss should be our gain. The images of spouses crying because they cannot distinguish the love of their life from all the other bloated distorted bodies in makeshift morgues with coffins stacked 8 high aught to haunt us into taking pre-cautionary action. Traveling today's world, without old fashioned know-how of wind, waters and wildlife, sets the stage for more tragedy, natural and otherwise. The first real step to making a difference in saving lives before disaster hits might be diverting some of the $39,155 billion bahts back to homeshores for disaster preparedness in North America. Few New Yorkers talk, over lattes at Starbucks up on Lexington and 45th, about preparedness for the earthquake fault running through Midtown Manhattan. Colleges teaching Islamic culture solidarity or supporting political unrest against the Occupation, do not teach students how they will cope, or perish, when the Tsunami expected to wipe out the whole East Coast, hits. Hollywood has long been releasing "Metropolis' being washed out to sea films." A Tinsel Town favorite "the big one" theme in which Los Angeles breaks off and fall into the ocean could become a primer for what to do, when and how. Maybe the travel industry will require hoteliers to teach, and travelers to take, a half hour preparedness course on "Surviving Paradise When Disaster Hits." And maybe, legislators will require travel related industry marketers, like cheaptickets.com, to post in bold print, natural hazard warnings advising tourists traveling may be injurious and/or fatal to their health. Long before science proved Jewish and Arab restrictions against pork and shell fish cogent, having discovered pigs produce trichinoses and shell fish grub metals and other poisons of lake bottoms, a time before adults could remember the sailor's ditty taught in class, "red sky at morning, sailor take warning." People knew to navigate themselves by the stars. Water could be found with reeds in sand instead of on Kabbalah Center shelves selling for a princely ransom and a horse was not only a cowboy's ride but also his best chance of survival as it became both food and interpretive clothing. Until short courses on locating moss on the north side of a tree or watching the sun rise to note which directions are east and west, are taught for surviving disasters in jungles, urban and otherwise, a good first step might be assuring highly paid scientists do not fall asleep, ever again, at the proverbial Tsunami wheel, of misfortune. Thought might be to buy them a dog or two, and hope they know more about animals than the TV production company dog being told to "sit Ubu sit." BIO: Carrie Devorah, an award winning investigative photojournalist based in Washington DC specializes in paper trails, finding things and people who are lost.