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What’s that sound?

PostHeaderIcon What’s that sound?

la palma tsunamiOff the coast of North West Africa, close to southern Morocco and West Sahara lies a group of islands called the Canary Islands. One of its most western islands is called La Palma (the islands belong to the kingdom of Spain). La Palma is basically just a volcano. It has erupted many times (last time in 1971), and, although controversial, there are predictions of it being close to erupting again soon, with devastating results: it is thought to be very likely to dislodge a 12 mile-long slab of rock that will crash to the ocean floor, causing a dome of water a mile high, causing a tsunami, travelling at 500 mph.

It would reach the US mainland  in 9 to 12 hours and the 165 ft high waves would simply wipe Boston, New York and Miami off the face of this globe.

And, of course, Palm Bay, the town I live in, would be gone as well.

Last night I was reading about all these interesting facts and wondering why I wasn’t packing up my stuff and moving to Nevada. I may make that the subject of another post, but anyway, pondering all these fatalistic scenarios made me sleepy, so I went to bed.

For some reason, ever since my ‘heart attack’ scare back in May, I seem to need a lot less sleep than I  used to. As so many times lately, I woke up around 4am, and, also as usual, started to read.

It must have been around 5:30am that I heard a faint noise. Kind of a rumble, like a truck driving by on the nearby highway. But it didn’t fade. This is probably where this subtle noise entered my consciousness: I laid down my book, and I’m sure I must have looked puzzled: I’d never heard anything like it. It still was very faint and sounded like it came from far away, but it appeared to get louder. “There’s a UFO landing on my lawn” I thought. But I’m a rational guy and parted, with slightly sad feelings, with THAT notion.

Then I noticed the slight trembling of the house, the windows rattling… it was a VERY subtle and a barely noticeable vibration, but it was definitely there!

I got up to investigate, by now I was REALLY puzzled by it.

And then suddenly it hit me! That tsunami! La Palma! It had happened! A wall of water was headed down the street and soon it would all be over.

Then something strange happened: instead of panicing, I was overcome with a deep feeling of peace and I became extremely calm. It was something that I have experienced before .. in dreams! Where I was in situations with a disastrous, really inescapable and irreversible outcome, I would simply ‘resign’. If the outcome is truly inevitable, there is no point in wasting energy in trying to reverse it.

I have mentioned my fear of flying here before. During flight I’m constantly in a state of semi-panic. But when that day comes, that my plane’s wings fall off (and it WILL come), I am convinced that I will then suddenly become very calm again. I probably will even smile, and while everyone around me is panicing in utter chaos, I will grab my book, start reading, and think “told you so!”.

Likewise, realizing the magnitude of what was happening, I calmly walked to my computer to see what I could find out about it. What else was there to do?

And then, while the sound and vibration, while ever so slightly, became more apparent … the light went out.

Fortunately that lasted only a split second. But I had to restart my computer. While it was rebooting, I opened the front door and stepped outside in the dark … expecting strong wild winds.

There was no wind whatsoever, although I definitely could still ‘sense’ the noise, but by now it was getting fainter and fainter. There was definitely something ‘out there’. But clearly, not the dreaded wall of water that my brain had concocted. Soon it was all over, and I was standing in a quiet warm dark central Florida night, wondering what the heck I’d just experienced.

About an hour later I realized what it had been.

And I also realized that, had I stepped out on the patio, instead of the front door, I immediately would  have known what this was and I would have stood there in pure awe and admiration …

I kicked myself for picking the wrong door, and went back to bed.


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12 Responses to “What’s that sound?”

  • Rob La Gesse says:

    Aren’t launches grand? The ONLY thing I miss about Palm Bay.

    I do ASSUME his is what you are referring to 🙂

  • Injun says:

    Assuming it was around 5:26 am, I guess it was the ultra-violent chemical reaction of liquid oxygen and something called RP-1 that was trying to make your swimming pool spill over?

  • Paul says:

    It’s a wonderful thing to have smart friends.
    Yes Rob and yes Injun, it was indeed the noise of a powerful three stage Delta II rocket with no less than 9 (nine!) solid rocket motors strapped to its first stage, that was launched from nearby Cape Canaveral.
    I missed an amazing spectacle. I stood there with my back to it, staring in the wrong direction.
    See: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

  • Yuvi says:

    Sigh. All I could do is hear about them on the news 🙁

  • deannie says:

    It even flicked the lights for a second? Wow…

  • Paul says:

    @Yuvi .. well.. don’t feel bad. I was THERE, I was HEARING it, I was FEELING it, and I still missed it.

    @Deannie, yes it did. That had me puzzled too. Of course, it COULD have been a coincidence, but then what ELSE could it have been: it was a clear sky, no wind, no lightning, just a nice warm moonlit night.

  • Yuvi says:

    No, on afterthought, I’m pretty sure it was a warning sign from the Transparent Horny Phoenix… Beware!

  • I live on La Palma.

    “Controversial” is an understatement. Most geologists seem to think that the fault line doesn’t even exist. If it does, then it will only slip when the volcano is errupting (and we’re not due for another for about 150 years.) There will only be a tsunami if it all goes at once – but even according to those who believe the fault is there, in 1949 it fell 13ft and stopped. Incidently, nobody here seems to have noticed the ground they live on dropping 13ft.

    So I don’t think you need to lose sleep over it.

    Sheila

  • Brian says:

    No need to lose sleep over the so-called La Palma Tsunami. (See my website).
    I also feel that you do La Palma an injustice by refering to it as ‘basically just a volcano’. It is far more than that, just as the Rockies are more than ‘just a few mountains’ or Florida is ‘basically just a swamp’.
    La Palma is indeed made up of a series of volcanoes which quietly erupt every now and again. It also has the largest volcanic erosion crater in the world, is the home of one of the best observatories in the world, it has been assigned the status or world Biosphere by Unesco, has a thriving economy and is home to about 90,000 people. I am one of them!
    Brian
    http://www.islalapalma.com

  • Brian says:

    The La Palma Tsunami website is http://www.lapalma-tsunami.com
    Brian

  • Injun says:

    @Brian – what did I miss? Florida is just basically a swamp, no?? 🙂

  • Polleke Claessen says:

    Paul,
    can you please contact me at paulclaessen@bigstring.com ?
    Thanks,
    Paul Claessen
    Luzice-CZ

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