By Chris Potrykus
Published: October 05, 2009

By Chris Potrykus
For the Daily Titan

Janeene Salevao is devastated.

Her family’s house may have been washed away. The family car may be wrapped around a tree. For all she knows, her family could be dead, picked up by a wall of water and sucked out to the open sea or buried underneath mounds of sand.

And being that her family is thousands of miles away on a tiny island in the South Pacific, she has no way of knowing if they are alive or dead.
These things are all a reality for many Cal State Fullerton students of Samoan descent.

American Samoa and Western Samoa are part of an island chain in the Pacific Ocean near Australia and New Zealand. American Samoa is a territory of the U.S., much like Puerto Rico.

On Tuesday morning, Sept. 29, around 8 a.m. local time, an 8.0 earthquake struck 120 miles off shore, hurling four 15 – 20 foot tsunami waves at the small islands. An early warning system alerted Samoan residents about 20 minutes before the waves struck, reaching close to a mile inland. Some made it into the hills on time, others did not.

Many Samoan students at CSUF still have family members on the islands.
Salevao, a senior criminal justice major, was one of the few whose family was not lost.

“I am one of the lucky ones whose family out in Samoa survived this devastating tsunami,” Salevao stated in an e-mail. “But many were not so lucky.”

Victims were swept out of their homes by the receding waves, buried under mounds of sand; the waves picked up on their way inland and slammed into debris from houses and cars. Nearly 200 are dead, hundreds still missing.
“Most of the houses are open, meaning no doors, no windows … so most everything was swept away,” Salevao stated, regarding the structures on Samoa.

Calls for relief began almost immediately on the mainland. Local Samoan families began gathering canned food, water, clothes and blankets to send to the islands. Within hours after the disaster, churches with large Samoan congregations already had bins full of aid ready to be sent to Samoa.
A quick response was expected from the community, but many feared that the federal government would overlook the tiny islands.

“I was completely surprised the United States was taking action and wanting to be able to help this island in the middle of nowhere,” said Brianna Alofaituli, a junior kinesiology major, who has family on the island.
To the surprise of some, President Barack Obama declared a major disaster and ordered federal aid be sent to American Samoa. A Coast Guard cargo plane landed in Pago Pago, the capital of the colony, on Wednesday with the first batch of aid to the island. In all, five cargo planes have arrived at the island carrying food, clothes, blankets, cots, medical supplies and other aid items. There is also a Navy frigate carrying two search-and-rescue helicopters just off shore. Western Samoa is receiving aid from New Zealand and Australia.

The effects of the tsunami will be felt long after the debris is cleared and the homes are rebuilt. Many residents of the islands grow many of their own crops as their main food source, a source which has all but been washed away.

“It’s really sad that the tsunami had to devastate Samoa so greatly,” said Sedfrey Linsangan, a political science graduate student. “It not only destroyed their homes and all their belongings, but it also destroyed their crops. Now they’re going to have to resort to canned foods, which make them more prone to obesity and diabetes.”

Samoan families, both on the island and mainland, have pulled together through this tragedy.

“We have always been close, but now it’s like more than inseparable now that we know to cherish the moments with our loved ones before it is too late,” Salevao said.