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Older residents were helped from damaged houses.
People abandoned cars in the streets.
Some took only a coat.
Others grabbed documents, medicine, water, or photographs.
There was no time to pack properly.
There was no time to decide what was important.
The instruction was simple:
Get to higher ground.
And everyone understood that every minute mattered.
The Sea Began to Change
Then something strange happened.
People near the coastline noticed the ocean behaving differently.
The water began pulling away.
At first, it looked almost beautiful.
The shoreline seemed to expand.