Now I have heard from everyone I know in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. That is a relief. Although those areas are far away from the zone of disaster caused by the tsunami, I worried that someone might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now I know my friends are fine.

It is a tragedy however, that so many others will not be able to say that. I think one of the worst problems for many people will be that their loves ones have never been found or identified so in effect, they just disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Now the so-called experts here are debating whether or not that could happen here. There is a fault off the west coast of the U.S. which has been inactive for 300 years and is now "due" for movement. Some experts are worried that the northwestern U.S. coastline could suffer a similar fate as well. These sort of things combined with increased population and habitation of coastlines and rising sea levels due to global warming, are adding to the dangers of natural phenomena.