Margo Sorenson shares the story behind her story …

One of my most favorite backlist books has been Tsunami, which is still in print, finding its way into schoolrooms and libraries, and which has created a wonderful relationship with the endearing geophysicists (yes, you read that right!) at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Ewa Beach, Hawaii.

Perfection Learning Corporation, who’d published a number of my reluctant reader titles, decided they were going to publish a line of natural disaster books, and they asked me which titles I wanted to do.  After having lived in Hawaii for ten years—and right in the middle of a tsunami inundation and evacuation zone (maps in our local phone book!)—I picked hurricanes and tsunamis.  Living in Minnesota at the time and obviously being nowhere near anything close to a tsunami inundation zone, unless you counted the sump pump in the walkout, I had to mentally put myself right back in Hawaii, imagining the warnings, the preparations, evacuations, and the devastation.

Off I went to the Edina Public Library and read like crazy.  Honestly, I felt as if I were back in school, doing homework.  Among the forty-five sources I ended up using to write the book, I found two names that kept cropping up: Mike Blackford and Chip McCreery, of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the International Tsunami Information Center, both run by NOAA. If Chip’s (Dr. Charles, thank you!) name sounds vaguely familiar to you, it’s because anytime there is a tsunami, he’s quoted in the newspaper.

As I was writing the book, I ended up with many questions about the PTWC and the ITIC, and I realized I was going to have to talk to these fine gentlemen and ask them how things really worked out there in Hawaii.  Aha! you’re thinking—a good excuse for a trip to Hawaii! That would have been nice, especially since my treks to the library were through snow, but the timing of the deadline wasn’t quite right.  I picked up the phone and called the number for the PTWC, expecting to be put on hold, speaking with a secretary or an admin, and leaving a message.

Here’s how it went:

Ring, ring!

“Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.”

“Hello, I’d like to speak to Dr. Chip McCreery.”

“This is he!”

I was in total shock!  We had a great conversation that was just the beginning of a friendship that’s lasted since 1997.  I wrote an entire chapter about the PTWC, putting together a “day in the life of,” and dedicated the book to Chip and Mike (as well as my family, of course!).  In turn, they ordered a number of copies and handed them out to visiting dignitaries and educators. In later years, I was able to visit both the ITIC and the PTWC and meet them and the other geophysicists that run the nerve center of the Pacific rim of fire and who are so enthusiastic about showing visitors everything that they do in the center.

Anytime there’s a big tsunami, I email Chip and he always responds.  When I did a school author visit thsis last April, I emailed Chip and asked him what I should tell all the fourth grade who had read Tsunami. With his usual whimsical sense of humor, he answered, “I don’t think in Poway (inland San Diego) they’ll have to worry too much, but tell them to stay away from the beach in San Diego if there’s an earthquake!”

Now in its second printing, Tsunami continues to spark conversations here on the Mainland—and keep a nice friendship intact.

Learn more about Margo Sorenson …