It took only eight minutes after the most powerful earthquake she'd ever felt knocked her to the ground, for a wall of water to slam through the sleepy Samoan surf resort where she was staying and sweep it away.
As she fled in a van, Cristiane "Kiki" Martins of Maui said she and others screamed at villagers to escape to higher ground. But the Paia resident said she saw some families stay behind in their homes, waiting for a warning or evacuation order that wouldn't come in time.

Back home safely on Friday, but still fragile and shaky from her ordeal, Martins said she wanted to share her experience so people on Maui would not make the same mistake she saw cost some people in Samoa their lives.

"If there's an earthquake, if you're near the ocean, just run to higher ground, no matter what," she said. "Don't wait."

Martins said that the morning Tuesday at the small Saleni Surf Resort outside of Upolu, Samoa, started like any other. She woke up early to check the surf. It was Martins' first visit to the tiny South Pacific nation, and after three days she'd already fallen in love with the peaceful village located at a river's mouth, its warmhearted people and perfect waves.

"It was paradise," she said. "It's beautiful."

Then, walking back to her waterfront fale, or open-walled cottage, from an early pre-surf breakfast in the resort, Martins noticed "10 seconds of weirdness" - a horse spooked, dogs became agitated and dozens of birds took flight at once.

Then the earthquake struck.

The shaking was so strong, it knocked her to the ground. For three minutes, the earthquake, later measured at a magnitude 8.0, convulsed the seashore village, sending the resort's workers and six tourists staggering out of their fales.

When the shaking stopped, Martins' thoughts immediately turned to what likely was coming next: tsunami.

Dashing back to her fale, she grabbed her passport, green card, water and food.

"I looked at the ocean - it was just coral heads, dry," she said. "Then I knew."

While some of the tourists still were standing around in shock, Martins and the Australian manager of the hotel started running, yelling at the others to get away. They piled into a van with the hotel's two dogs and were about to hit the gas when one man tried to get out to find his passport.

"That's when we saw the wave coming," Martins said.

The group raced inland for about a mile, a "massive line of white water" roaring at their backs. The escape was chaotic. She saw people fall out of overcrowded trucks, dogs run over by cars, panicked horses galloping through the crowd, dragging the trees they'd been tied to.

Martins' group made it to some low hills that were above the reach of the first wave, and as the water receded, the hotel manager left to return to the village and look for survivors before the second wave could hit.

"That was very brave of him," she recalled. "He went back."

Then the next wave rushed in, bigger than the first. The survivors scrambled for higher ground. Martins grabbed a child and a 9-month-old baby and started to run.

Each surge was bigger than the last. The first wave was about 6 feet of clear ocean. The fourth wave was a 20-foot wall of dirty water bearing debris and floating bodies.

By the time the fourth, largest wave came, Martins was able to get a ride inland to a safe zone, where a local family opened its home to her and other survivors, giving them food and bringing them coconut water to drink.

"The community came together in a way I've never seen," she said.

When she returned to the village an hour after the last wave receded, "everything was gone."

Dead people and animals were on the ground. Bodies dangled from trees.

"A lot of kids were missing their parents. A lot of parents were missing their kids," she said.

All of Martins' things except for the bag she saved were gone. But later, a group of local children called her and proudly presented one of her surfboards, which they'd found upstream. Martins was amazed they'd not only known her name, but recognized the board as hers.

And she learned the hotel manager, who had returned to the village with his van to look for survivors after each wave, had saved 20 people. He also lived.

During the crisis, Martins said she stayed strong and kept thinking about the voice of her 6-year-old son as she fled for her life.

"I became a warrior, because I had to," she said.

It wasn't until she reached her hotel room in New Zealand that she was able to cry.

While Western Samoa conducts regular training in tsunami preparedness, Martins said she understood that much of the training teaches people to listen for warnings and evacuation orders when there's an alarm. That decision might have cost some families their lives, because they decided to stay and wait for instructions after the earthquake, rather than run for safety.

"That's way too late," she said.

The experience also made her realize the importance of agreeing on a safe place for the family to meet. Some families got separated in the escape, and returned to the village to look for one another, only to die in the next wave, she said.

"Have a plan," she said.

The native of Brazil lives with her son and boyfriend in a beachfront home in Paia, but the family has decided to move inland and is selling the house, she said. They had been contemplating the move for a while, but Martins' experience in Samoa helped with the decision, said her boyfriend, Sandy Fisher.

"It's great having a house on the ocean, but we'd rather know we're safe as a family on higher ground," he said.