Tsunami Survivor: "There was No Time"

(CBS)  Joey Cummings is the general manager of a television station in American Samoa. He was filling in for a colleague Tuesday morning as the ground beneath him started to shake. Just minutes later, he was watching the Pacific Ocean rise to his second-storey window.

"It was the most intense earthquake I have ever experienced," Cummings told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith on the phone. "It just kept going, and just wouldn't stop."

As the ground stood still following the 8.3 magnitude quake, Cummings and his colleagues thought the worst might just be over. Then the killer waves came. The tsunamis have killed at least 99 people in American Samoa and neighboring Samoa.

View photos of the tsunami aftermath

"As soon as it went down we tried to get some information as to whether there was a tsunami… We just told everybody to do a vertical evacuation," said Cummings, urging people to climb stairs, hills or mountains out of caution.

Watch: Tsunami Survivor Speaks to Early Show

"We looked out the window, and boom, there it was," he said the first of four massive waves came roaring toward his office like a freight train.

"There was no time... Even another five minutes would have been great. It was just very quick, very sudden."

[noloyalisti]

We better help them over there so we don't have to help them over here.

[will_lemusu]

Wow. Yes, let us help the people of Samoa, but not with restrictions, but with good intent, high morals, and the whole heartedness of our very beings. Let's help them with something other than comments that are hurtful and spiteful regardless of their intent. I am a deployed U.S. Army soldier who has a mom out there who has yet to check in with an agency who is deployed to help out. I'll let her know to stay there and rebuild from the ruins because there is a fear of invading someone else space. Let those out there stay blessed to drive about and walk freely in their neighborhoods while she stays there unable to travel to the nearest store, play outside with her great nieces and nephews, or even be given a chance for a new beginning somewhere else to which she is most certainly entitled to move to. So, I thank you for commenting and also ask for your help. I ask not of your space, nor anything of monetary value, but just a prayer. A prayer that she may rebuild, a prayer that jobs will still be available to the people of Samoa, and most importantly, a prayer to fix as much of the damage as humanly possible so that she will NOT have to be 'over here' to receive your assistance.

[avigil2]

Let's hope that we don't have to help you in any emergency when you need hopelessly need it.

[Oregon_State_OSU]

When the Ocean rushes away from the shore and goes out 100s of feet you had better be running for higher ground and away from the ocean. I grew up on the Oregon Coast and we learned that in Grade School in the early 70s.

[John_Merritt]

I don't know if it was the proximity of the fault line in relationship to the location of the islands; or the islands remoteness in the middle of the ocean as opposed to land based (coastline) tsunami's that have hit other areas in the world which causes the expediency of these waves? It is truly sad and sometimes cries out for the argument of limiting high density population areas in earthquake zones and coastline building? God Bless them all and we all pray the onslaught of tragedies we are experiencing is heard and answered by God above.

[ToolMangler1]

There is no such thing as an 'earthquake free zone' and because of that, any coastal area less than 100 feet above sea level is subject to being destroyed by a tsunami (Yes, 100 foot waves have been recorded and higher than that are also possible). Peoples living in coastal areas will always be in danger. "Manhattan, NY can be inundated also."