Yes, you don't want to be anywhere near the black holes as this happens. The strength of gravitational waves is measured by its "strain." The strain is the fr

Yes, you don't want to be anywhere near the black holes as this happens. The strength of gravitational waves is measured by its "strain." The strain is the fractional change in length due to the gravitational wave. Gravitational wave detectors like LIGO are trying to measure strains of ~10^-20, so the distance between two points a light-year apart would change by ~0.1 mm. Obviously this is a very subtle effect. But near the merging black holes the strain is ~1. So if you start out 2 meters tall you will end up 4 meters tall in about 1 second.