Helping quake victims in Indonesia

I was in the Mentawaiis the day the quake hit. I was traveling throughout Indonesia surfing and doing humanitarian work. As with so many surfers who volunteer every year, the first part of my trip was to consist of a standard boat charter trip with friends through the Mentawaii Islands.

After that I was scheduled to fly over to Bali and work, with Skills For Humanity ( www.skillsforhumanity.org), on a humanitarian project for my new foundation — Waves For Water ( www.wavesforwater.org). My father, Jack, has an existing water related nonprofit called www.raincatcher.org.

A few months ago he and I launched a sister foundation, Waves For Water, with a central goal in mind: to create a platform for the surf community to help bring clean water to Third World villages worldwide.

The Bali project was going to be my first Waves For Water mission. Then the quake hit. When it happened, I was on the boat anchored at a fun little lefthander.

A friend and I felt the trembling but were unsure if it was just some random boat or ocean movement that is so common in that environment. We thought nothing of it until our captain heard later that night that a massive earthquake hit Padang.

We anchored directly off of Padang, which is different than the normal harbor anchorage a few miles away. The captain got word that the roads to and from the harbor were destroyed and decided that anchoring off Padang would be a better option.

We got word that there were no flights operating out of Padang Airport, that 80% of structures were damaged, and there was no electricity. At this point, everyone on the boat had one main concern — getting home!

There was a defining moment for me during all of this. I realized that I had 10 ceramic water filters in my bag that I had planned on using for my upcoming Bali trip. I was then consumed with focus and determination to try and get these filters into Padang and help aid relief efforts. Up to this point, nothing in my life had prepared me for the type of total and complete devastation I was about to encounter.

The drive through Padang to the Red Cross station felt like something out of a battle scene in a Terminator movie. Smoke and rubble everywhere, people yelling … and some people standing, smoking their cigarettes, frozen in a state of shock.