Tsunami’s waves were wakeup call

How do you put a silver lining on the instant deaths of more than

200,000 people -- more than the population of Newport-Mesa? You

don’t.

But that doesn’t mean that the waves that caused so much

devastation in a land many of us will see only on the evening news

hasn’t hit home in more subtle ways.

As the world comes to the aid of the Dec. 26 tsunami victims, so

has Newport-Mesa.

Students and parents at Newport Coast Child Development Preschool

have emptied their piggybanks to the tune of $15,000 for relief

efforts. Local restaurateur Sam Tila, owner of Royal Thai Cuisine on

West Coast Highway in Newport Beach, raised at least $10,000. And

other eateries, like JACKshrimp in Newport Beach and Taco Mesa in

Costa Mesa are working toward similar relief efforts.

A classroom discussion at TeWinkle Middle School turned into

$6,000 in five days. A local state senator wants tax breaks for

people who give money to the cause. Newport Beach doctors flew to

India, with a chance of tending to those injured in the disaster. The

examples of giving go on, including local people who were caught up

in the disaster. Costa Mesa resident Steve Abrams, who was

vacationing in Phuket, Thailand, with five friends, ended up trying

to save people from being swept away like ants by the water.

Of course, this community has no grand claim to giving to the

relief efforts any more than cities across the country and the globe.

We tout the giving here not out of selfishness or even praise, but

for the very reason the givers’ stories have been presented on these

pages -- through them, we see our community’s humanity, the best of

people in the worst of times, and we see how connected we can be to

the rest of the world.

In the Dec. 26 disaster itself, we see how fragile we really are

compared to the forces of nature. And we’ve seen that through the

eyes of local people who were in South Asia on that December day.

And yet, as our own community rightly looks to the shores of

Indonesia and Sri Lanka, we can’t also forget other real dramas that

envelop places like Ethiopia, where almost half of a population of 70

million is malnourished. For that matter, we can’t forget about our

own backyard -- the soup kitchens of the world, the clinics that

serve the needy -- who could always use a donation or a kind service.

No. There is no silver lining in the wake of those terrible walls

of water, but it sure was a wakeup call.