Two Las Vegans return safely

David Kihara

Monday, Jan. 3, 2005 | 11:13 a.m.

Two Las Vegas residents who had been feared missing in the tsunami that ravaged South Asia last week are safe and returned home during the weekend.

Henry Todd Aase and Diana Bell Dreyer were vacationing in different parts of Southeast Asia when the region was hit by one of the worst natural disasters ever recorded.

Last week their names were among the hundreds that are posted on a web site managed by the International Committee of the Red Cross, www.familylists.icrc.org.

The site lists individuals unaccounted for in the wake of Sunday's tsunami.

Friends and relatives of Aase and Dreyer were worried about them for days.

"When you see the floods in Thailand, you can't help but be scared" if any of your loved ones or friends were in that country when the tsunami hit, Henry Todd Aase's mother, Marie Aase, said.

Her 40-year-old son has lived in Las Vegas for the past 2 1/2 years and works for Qualcomm Inc., said Marie Aase, who lives in Norfolk, Neb.

Her fears were allayed Saturday when her son called after arriving in Las Vegas.

"I never heard from him, so I just assumed the worst," she said.

Fortunately, Aase said, he and his girlfriend, Summittha, 22, had been on the opposite side of Thailand from where the tsunami struck.

"I was in the northern part of Thailand. All we had was some high surf," he said.

However, without the latest newspapers or television news, Aase didn't learn the extent of the casualties and damages until Tuesday, after Aase and his girlfriend rode a Moped to an Internet site 20 miles from where they were staying.

"Everyone north of Bangkok was disconnected," he said. "I didn't have any way to call out of the country."

Before hearing from her son, Marie Aase was encouraged when she heard her son's credit card had been used twice.

"As soon as I found out that there were two transactions, I was so excited," Marie Aase said.

She became a minor celebrity in Norfolk, with reporters from three local news outlets and Fox News in New York having contacted her about her son.

She said she turned down the interview request from Fox News because she didn't want to leave her house in case her son called her.

Meanwhile, a Clark County School District librarian who also had been reported missing on the International Committee of the Red Cross's Web site also turned out to be safe. Forty-two-year-old Diane Bell Dreyer turned out to be a safe distance from the flooding.

Dreyer had left Las Vegas a few days before Christmas to vacation in Southeast Asia.

When news of the tragedy in that region was first reporter, "I was very concerned," said Mary Casey, a friend of Dreyer who was taking care of Dreyer's cats while she was on vacation.

Casey said she didn't learn Dreyer was safe until Thursday, when a mutual friend called her to report that Dreyer had e-mailed and was nowhere near the floods.

Dreyer was in Cambodia at the time of the tsunami but didn't contact anyone in Las Vegas until several days after the flooding, Casey said.

Dreyer returned to Las Vegas on Sunday.

"I was not even a witness. I wasn't near it," she said.