2010 Tsunami

I woke up before 6am with a phone call telling me not to go to work today. Something about a tsunami hitting Hawaii. I was at the UH baseball game the night before, so when i got home after the game, I went right to bed. I had no idea that there was a 8.8 earthquake that had hit Chile the night before. Or that there was a tsunami watch for pretty much all of the Pacific Ocean.

I turned on the radio and grabbed my phone and started googling, and found out about what happened. At 6am, the sirens started going. I read that the tsunami expected at Hawaii would be 10-12 foot waves.

Tsunami waves aren't the same as normal waves. It's more like a surge of water. The ocean level gets higher, and instead of a wave with a face that comes then a lull, the tsunami surges like a river for a while, the sucks the water back out then rushes in again. And this cycle continues for a while. So picture instead of 10-12 foot waves rolling in, a wall of ocean that's 10-12 feet higher than normal rushing into land.

At 6am, the Civil Defense Sirens started going off. Shortly after, I heard house and car doors closing and vehicles leaving my neighborood. I started getting a little worried, when I looked out the window, there were only a few cars left on the block. So I called my dad to find out what he thought. He told me that I should be ok, as long as I had some water and food and unplug the electrical appliances, just in case the power goes out again. He told me that he was on standby for work (he works for the Department of Land and Natural Resources), for after the tsunami. Feeling better with what he told me, I stayed in bed for a little longer, fielding some phone calls, texts, and IMs of friends on the mainland. It was when Brandy called me and scolded me for only having 1/2 a tank of gas and to get my butt out of bed to get more, that I decided to listen to her and try it.

I headed out to the gas station by the Zippy's by my house. I was hoping that there wouldn't be too many people there. Plus, I only had 1/4 of a tank, not 1/2! when I saw that the line was past the block, I decided to just grab a big breakfast at Zippy's instead. And if I really needed gas that bad later on, I'd just take it out of John's car. lol. Zippy's wasn't packed at all, but while I was waiting for my food, a whole bunch of people came in and was buying stuff at the bakery. For some reason, people were buying cakes and pies! I guess if you gotta be in a tsunami, might as well have some dessert! Or maybe it was for all those tsunami parties that I kept seeing my friends posting on their facebook status. Who knows? At the 7-11 by Zippy's, the lines were long, and it seemed that 1/2 the people were buying beer. Must need esentials! lol.

Anyways, after that, I went back home and turned on the news and basically parked my butt infront of the tv and watched the news and their live feeds about what happened. I was getting a little worried when both of my dogs started acting anxious and whiny. But they soon settled in and passed out round me. I watched the water level rise and fall in Hilo Bay. It was crazy, because in a matter of a few minutes, you could see the rocks and reef poking up from the water and alot of the beach, then you see the water rushing into Hilo Bay, then the reef, the rocks, and the beach are no more. And this is in a matter of minutes. It was so crazy seeing the tsunami react like that. It wasn't anything like those huge waves that I saw footage of or always heard about the last time we had a tsunami in Hilo back in 1946 that killed over a hundred people! But I was glad that it wasn't anything that severe. They had closed the roads at 10 and evacuated everyone out of the tsunami evacuation zones. They were showing the footage of those areas, and it was a ghost town all over there! The roads were all empty and it was so eerie seeing it on tv.

A little bit after 2, they gave the all clear and it was a good day - the tsunami had hit, but it wasn't as devistating as we were all anticipating. perhaps the evacuation wasn't needed, but I was glad that we were all prepared. People were evacuating and there were no real tie ups or panic.

Thanks to all of you that called or texted to find out if I was ok ... it was definately comforting to know that even though you guys are thousands of miles away, you still care!