“GET out and go higher! Go higher!”
That was the first and only warning that a Brisbane woman – in American Samoa to help launch the region’s first Cursillo weekend – heard before the first of four tsunami waves struck Pago Pago.
That was when Redcliffe’s Margaret Morris and seven other Brisbane Cursillistas realised their lives had been hanging by a thread as their Samoan bus driver swung the bus away from the harbourside road on which they were travelling.
Desperately, he was heading back in the direction they’d come … hoping to reach that higher ground away from the tsunami’s deadly path.
“The water was lapping around the bus as we started to climb up from the harbour,” Ms Morris said.
“We would make it … just. I don’t know what happened to those who were following us.
“But later, once the last of the waves had stopped, as we wended our way through a path that had been cleared through the destruction, I was sure I saw some of the vehicles that had been behind us as we made our escape.
“Except now they were overturned, smashed and empty of all people.”
Ms Morris’ trip into this nightmare, once a tropical paradise, had started when she and a team of 14 Australian Cursillistas visited American Samoa at the invitation of Bishop John Quinn Weitzel.
They were invited to conduct a men’s three-day Cursillo from the night of September 24 to 27, followed by a women’s Cursillo and were staying at the cathedral parish of the Holy Family Retreat Centre Fatuoaiga (which means “heart of the family”).
Accompanying Ms Morris from Brisbane were Peter McMahon, Yvonne Carrigan, Kathy Nix, Rhonda Porteous, and Tam, Yen and Ut Nguyen.
Other Cursillistas aboard the bus with them were Paul O’Connor (Cairns), Joe Jambor (Canberra), John and Helen Andrews (Maitland/Newcastle), Merran Martin(Canberra), Dianne Garland (Wollongong) and spiritual advisor Fr Carl Mackander (Orange).
The men’s gathering was successfully over. Preparations were now underway for the women’s event.
The day of this next Cursillo event, they had been invited to a feast by the chief of a neighbouring village who would be roasting a pig in their honour.
Tuesday, September 29 (American Samoan time), dawned bright and clear and the group was up early to board a bus driven by local islander Rain Timu.
At this point the passengers didn’t know Rain had awoken earlier that morning about four o’clock with a strong urge to pray, something he did not normally do at this hour.
“After our narrow escape, Rain told us that in this prayer he asked God that on this day he would be the best driver he possibly could,” Ms Morris said.
“He also prayed that his passengers would all be safe on this day.”
As the group made its way aboard the bus towards the harbour town of Pago Pago nothing unusual was noticed except for rocks on the road as they neared the town.
“We didn’t feel the tremors from the earthquake which struck out to sea around 6.50am because we were aboard the bus by then,” Ms Morris said.
They would later learn that the warning had only come at 7.17am and that the first tsunami wave had struck land at 7.20.
“As we came near the harbour things suddenly started to happen very quickly,” Ms Morris said.
“First we saw the water suddenly disappear, then we saw a group of people running from the tuna cannery shouting something.
“At first some of us thought it was some sort of a riot as there had recently been lay-offs followed by trouble at the cannery.
“One of those running from the cannery motioned with his hand in a circle to the bus driver who immediately swung the bus around.
“I was still oblivious – had I been looking behind and not in front I would have seen the tsunami wave crashing to shore.
“By then the first wave – we later heard it was about twenty-six feet (8m) high – was almost upon us.
“The water was lapping the side of the bus but we were outpacing the full force of the giant wave … just.
“We were able to travel a few hundred metres in the bus.
“That’s when we heard the bus driver’s words: ‘Get out and go higher! Go higher!'”
Minutes later they were free of danger, the driver’s early-morning prayer answered, and climbing to the safety of a hill overlooking the harbour.
For three hours the group, along with many others who had fled, watched the tragedy unfold as three giant waves followed the first one.
“All the while we were thinking that if the bus driver hadn’t taken the bus up the hillside there’d have been nothing left of us,” Ms Morris said.
Finally it was safe for the group to come down. Workers had cleared a path through “a scene of terrible devastation”.
The passengers looked out in horror as their bus passed overturned and smashed cars, and a bus similar to their own, on the way back to the Holy Family Retreat Centre located high above the disaster zone.
“I don’t know what happened to the occupants of these vehicles,” Ms Morris said.
“It could so easily have been us – everything happened so quickly.
“It wasn’t our time to go, obviously. It was only by the grace of God we were saved.”
In the days that followed before the Cursillo team left to return home for Australia, Ms Morris said she had been “amazed” by the “absolutely extraordinary faith and resilience of the Samoan people”.
“Certainly after such a tragedy, those of us on the Cursillo team expected that the women’s three-day retreat, set to start on September 29, would most likely not go ahead.
“However, the bishop advised it would be best to wait and see who turned up so the starting date was set for September 30.”
Four women came and so, “amidst great sadness and hardship, Samoa’s first women’s Cursillo community was formed”, Ms Morris said.
These women will attend leadership training so they can themselves be leaders on the next Cursillo three-day retreat, at this stage planned for around June next year.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that New Zealand and Australia will jointly give $12.2 million in aid to help Samoa rebuild after the tsunami which took more than 180 lives.
