LAPUSH — The sea and sky could not have been bluer or more tranquil — until 10 a.m., when two horn blasts sent dozens of children scurrying to their big yellow bus.
“Hustle, hustle,” teachers said as the Quileute Tribal School students clambered on.
Then came the motorized stampede for the A-Ka-Lat (“top of the hill”) Center in Wednesday’s tsunami drill at the Quileute Reservation.
Two school buses lumbered down the driveway as a few women darted in front of them en route to their cars.
Then a long line of vehicles headed for higher ground.
The drill’s goal was to gather some 200 people on the 1-square-mile reservation at the center on By-Yak Way within 15 minutes.
The school buses made it in six minutes.
And the whole community had assembled in the center’s gym in nine minutes, said incident commander and LaPush Police Chief Bill Lyon.