Tsunani Event

I’m exhausted. It’s tough work, this evacuation business. Doesn’t matter that nothing happened. I say nothing happened, but a lot really did. It began last week when I went to Hilo to visit the Pacific Tsunami Museum with my cousins and Dad. The tiny museum holds a great collection of tsunami information, including videos of first hand accounts of the 1960 and 1947 tsunamis that hit Hilo. Fascinating and sobering information. I emailed my sister that Hawaii was overdue for a major volcano, earthquake, hurricane, tsunami event.

The last big tsunami was back in 1960. It wiped out Hilo, forever changing the water front and town. The wave originated off the coast of Chile, after a 9.1 quake rocked the coast. Fifteen hours later, traveling at speeds of over 500 miles an hour, a 30 foot wall of water slammed into the town located on the west side of the Big Island. This wasn’t the first time. Hilo has been repeatedly hammered by tsunamis as if the bay rolls out a welcome mat for the water.

On Friday night, I was on Twitter. A little after 8:30 HST, I started seeing tweets about a huge earthquake in Chile. Immediately, I wondered if a friend of mine, Rodrigo was okay. But my stream of thoughts shifted to what I learned at the museum. If this was a 8.8 magnitude quake, we could expect a tsunami in Hawaii. I researched the quake, even getting to sites in Chile that carried early video of damage in Santiago. All in Spanish of course, I learned little, but a picture is worth a thousand words. This quake was located in a similar spot to the 1960 quake. Shit, tsunami, for sure. I collected important papers, writings, camera gear, water and a pair of socks and staged the stuff in the living.

About 11:30 I discovered a huge ant colony moving its headquarters into my bath shower. An early evacuation? I had heard the whales were disappearing ahead of the tsunami.

Following the trail I discovered the origins in my closet, in an old bathing suit. Yes, that’s where they were. Thousands of them and an equal number of eco-skeletons. I cleaned up the mess drowning them in the bathroom sink. (A sign of things to come?) Finally, I headed for bed. I slept fretfully, thinking of ants, not tsunamis.

At 5:15 I woke. I felt something different. There was more traffic than normal,less cars in the complex. Over night we went from a tsunami advisory to a warning. The expected time of arrival was 11:19 am, no change from the night before. First tsunami sirens blared at 6 am. I went to wake Dad and gave him the news. Today, we get to have a unique Hawaiian vacation experience, an evacuation.

Before leaving I cleaned the dishes and sprayed the shower down. Both acts I thought silly if indeed a wall of water crashed into my place. (My condo is the first building on the opposite side of the road from the beachfront.) If a wave didn’t come, I didn’t want to return to another ant invasion nor did I want to scrub soap scum off the shower walls.

In Florida I was prepared for hurricanes. With my camping gear I could easily live for days off the grid in the rubble of a disaster. Not so much here, where my part-time living never seemed to warrant the accumulation of survival gear. I figured an evacuation meant I had to immediately move to higher ground. No time to grab anything, just hightail it to higher ground as quickly as possible, and on foot. I never expected an official five hour warnings for impending doom.

Public officials advised to take five days worth of food and water. Get real. Do you really know what five days worth of water is? I don’t even have that many days of food at any given time in my condo. I threw together crackers, granola bars, raisins and every drop of liquid I could muster - soda, Power-ade, water. Maybe three days for both Dad and me if we weren’t too thirsty. At least in Hawaii one doesn’t have to worry about packing snow boots, parkas, mittens and other cold weather gear.

Dad and I left by 7:30 am. Early, but we were hardly the first. The upstairs neighbor sent his two teens off to higher grounds with the instructions, “Don’t come back until it is all clear.” It must have been a rare public display of affection for Dad. He yelled out, “I love you.” Both teens, a brother and sister, paused and eyed each other. The teens then jumped on their scooters and disappear into the predawn darkness. Shortly thereafter, the parents got into their car and were gone.

Once you leave the evacuation area, you’re out. Road blocks appeared at every intersection manned with police officers who casually slumped on the hoods of their cars. The atmosphere was a quiet abandonment. Everyone seemed to move in slow motion, in orderly fashion. Whether on the road or in line at the grocery store, everyone was relaxed, having no sense of urgency. Few people acknowledged that something might happen. After all, this was the Kona. What was going to happen here?

We picked up a hitch hiker along Alii. He looked like he desperately needed a ride into town. He did, to retrieve his dive gear. He was a master diver. In town, Alii was blocked so we dropped him off at the farmers market and turned up out of the evacuation zone. No going back.

I joked about going to WalMart. Its high and out of the zone. From the retaining wall there is a good view of the town and the harbor. Choice seats to view the inundation of Kona. But it is also exposed to sun and held a mob of people. Cars clogged the parking lot as shoppers came for toilet paper, bread, beer and other essentials. Instead, I drove a bit higher to an empty office parking lot. Now I could view the mobs below.

For most of the morning Dad and I sat there alone. Later a couple leaving on a 2 PM flight pulled in to wait. Then an elderly couple arrived. And finally a traveling man from Chicago who had been in Hilo that morning. These were my lifeboat occupants. The quieter, more private group, we kept to ourselves not even exchanging names. Our conversations were minimal. I had the internet feed going and provided sparse updates as the uneventful tsunami began.

Times passed slowly. The ocean calmly waited. The crowd below calmly waited. The expected time of arrival came and went. Where was it? Watching Channel 2 out of Honolulu dragged on. Because Hilo closed the airport at 6 am, no reporters from Oahu were in Hilo to carry the expected surges live on TV. However, Skypers, a video camera internet service, called the station ready to deliver blow by blow coverage of the destruction. I saw lots of fuzzy, unclear video of what appeared to be Hilo Bay and the ocean. Ah, the technology. At least I knew what was happening in Hilo. I didn’t care about what was going on with the sand bar on Waikiki.

Finally, an oceanographer said wave two just passed. What? Where? When? At that point I knew we dodged a huge bullet. No thirty foot wave. No six to eight foot wave. A sloshing of a couple feet. Whew. Then the wait for all clear. That seemed like eternity.

I had a head ache and butt ache. I was exhausted. Today, I'm still exhausted.

It was a good exercise and reminder of what is needed to be safe and survive. Fortunately, no damage occurred on any of the islands. I have a new reference. I know where to find a less crowded evacuation spot with the conveniences of electricity for charging phone and laptop, a good internet signal, running water and shade - all within the stones throw from Safeway, WalMart, Subway and Lowes.

But this event doesn’t mean the next will be the same. Time and circumstances could change everything. Nevertheless, over the course of the rest of my stay I’ll begin to assemble my survival gear. There will be a next time because yes, we are still long over due.

When we returned home that afternoon, after pulling into the parking lot Dad hi-fived me. I think that was a first.