Wuan will be arriving from Kuala Lumpur later in the day. She had a suite booked at the Gurney Hotel for the next few days beginning today. The hotel is just across the road from the Gurney Drive seafront that was hit by the tsunami. I checked with the hotel to see if they were affected. I had heard that the entire stretch of Gurney Drive had been cordoned off. The Front Office convinced me that they are still in operation and that Gurney Drive is being cleaned up and they are still accepting guests. We have our apprehensions, fearing an aftershock that could trigger another tsunami. We will be checking out Gurney Drive and shall soon find out if we still want to stay there.
On the other hand, the car of the boyfriend of another neighbour?s daughter was awash in mud. He had parked beside the Gurney Drive seawall and went for a meal nearby. The wave came and dumped a load of mud on everything that was on its way, including his car. The upholstery inside was soiled as well. The cleaning up is going to cost him RM180. I was also informed that the hawker centre at the Gurney Drive roundabout is sodden with mud.
Did the full moon yesterday exacerbated the effect of the tsunami? A check of the Penang tidal conditions provided by Malaysian Meteorological Service indicated that high tide was at around 1:00pm on December 26. According to the US National Weather Service Forecast Office, a tsunami occurring at Spring high tide could be higher and go further inland and most possibly more devastating than other times, which was exactly what happened.