Not a Job, a Calling: 20 Years After The Indian Ocean Tsunami
At approximately 7:59 a.m. on December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck in the Indian Ocean, triggering a devastating tsunami that killed an estimated 240,000 people across 14 countries. Soon after, USAID deployed a team to coordinate the entire U.S. government’s response. This is their story, told through their words.
Rob Thayer, USAID Program Manager
“It was the day after Christmas and I was home with my family when I got the call. I was the regional coordinator for Asia at that time. I got a call from my boss, our division chief, that morning, and I remember his exact words. He said, ‘Rob, we’ve got problems all over Asia.’ So that was the start of a very intense day. Our job is to respond rapidly to sudden-onset events. So we knew what to do, but this was a massive event.”
Alex Mahoney, USAID Response Manager
“We actually had operations going 24 hours a day, so we had a night shift as well as a day shift. And really, you have to get things moving. You have to get people out to the field; you have to get partner organizations funded and working. You have to develop a strategy so that what you’re doing is well coordinated and makes sense and is based on assessed needs.”
Sara Westrick Schomig, USAID Senior Information Officer
“When I landed in Banda Aceh and started to see the devastation, it was really surreal. Having understood and studied what happened from a scientific perspective, having seen the satellite imagery, talking to our hydromet experts, I understood the mechanics of the tsunami, but seeing the impact of the tsunami was a surreal experience.”
“The entire coastline of the area had been transformed and had been wiped out. And it wasn’t like a flooding event though, because there was almost no debris. All of the debris washed back out with the wave energy. And so what was left was this very, very unusual rubble field for miles.”
John Zavales, USAID Military Liaison Officer
“It became clear pretty quickly that we would need to prepare for a large-scale response, which required collaboration with our military because they have some assets to support the humanitarian operation that we didn’t have on the civilian side. So I was based with a small group of people at a large air base in southern Thailand, called U-Tapao.”
“Going forward from this tsunami response, we started to rethink the policies and procedures that are in place about: how we request military assistance, when we request it, what the assets are that we need, what the assets are that we don’t need. Some of the big lessons that are best practices worldwide in military support to humanitarian operations, I would say we pioneered at that time.”
Sulayman Brown, USAID Communications Manager
“I was in Jakarta for maybe a day before we flew up to Banda Aceh. So, we were seeing it raw. I had to really separate my feelings, my emotional feelings from my job and what we were there to do.”
“Life is precious. A lot of those people were just fishing, just sitting in their homes. Normal day, every day in Banda Aceh. And then just like that, they’re gone.”
“Life gone, children gone, their homes destroyed. And that area has been forever changed from that event that happened 20 years ago.”
Sonia Biswas, USAID Senior Information Officer
“It’s only later that the full scope of what you’ve seen and heard hits you.”
“I felt that again when I was looking at the photographs, because I saw a photograph of a family. And it was a father and a mother and a young child. And I remember speaking to them because their daughter — I’m sorry — their daughter had died. And I thought, ‘I wonder how they’re doing.’ Now 20 years later, for them, this is an anniversary of probably the worst single day of their life.”
Chuck Setchell, USAID Shelter and Settlements Advisor
“I traveled throughout the eastern and southern part of Sri Lanka. We would arrive at a place on the map that had a name, and it was gone. What was a place no longer existed.”
“This work that we do called humanitarian assistance is not a job. It’s a calling. It really is. It’s something that you just, you don’t sign up for. You know that it’s what you do. And it’s important.”
Sezin Tokar, Ph.D, USAID Lead Senior Hydrometeorological Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction Advisor
“In 2004, in the Indian Ocean, there was no effective operational early warning systems for tsunamis — period — zero. And now, currently, we have about 50% of the world population covered by early warning systems. We still have a long way to go, and we are working — USAID, Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, and many other partners — to get there.”
