How to create mass panic in a city....

tell them a Tsunami is coming.

Seriously.

I live in Cairns, as you know. Coastal city, lovely place. Nothing over 15ish or so stories and that's a couple of blocks back from the ocean. 

Well, I wake up this morning (about 9ish) and not long after the phone rings. Mum answers it and starts sounding REALLY worried (I think the "HOW big?" in a worried voice clued me in). Turns out Dad had been moved to higher ground at work and was ringing us to warn us about the Tsunami warning in effect. They'd evacuated the city (which is on the waterfront) and the northern beaches and were posting warnings on the radio constantly.

First thing I did was call work. I've gotta go through the city to get to work and there was no way in hell I was going to turn up if they were closed.  They said that they were opened and everything was fine, come on in, there was nothing to worry about. Errrr... right. They said they'd been following it on the radio all morning.

Next thing I did was call the bus company. Wasn't going to be able to get into work if they'd cancelled all the busses. They were still running (bugger, I was hoping to have a day off).

Final thing I did was turn on the radio and see what exactly was being said. Aparently it was a non-event. 20cm or something like that and it came in at something like 10am.

Thankfully I didn't have to worry about taking a bus in, dad came home and drove me to work. He knows back roads that keep you away from the main traffic... and the traffic was INSANE!!! Kuranda range was blocked because a few morbid, moronic MORONS decided to stop halfway up to 'watch' the Tsunami coming in, therefore blocking the range and everyone who was trying to get to higher ground *shakes head*. People who would've been perfectly safe, as there's a lot of mountains around here blocking things off from the ocean, were panicing and running about evacuating.

Anyway, 'twas a rather, um, interesting day.