The date: 27 Feb 2010
The event: My First Tsunami Warning
The location: Kailua, HI
I was looking forward to a nice and relaxing weekend since I didn't have to work. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn't get that memo. It's 7AM and I hear the warning alarm sound from the fire department. I sit up, pissed off, thinking "why are they running the alarm test at 7:00am on a Saturday!? So I mosey up and walk into the living room and turn it on Island Weather to see what the forecast is predicted to be for the day so I can plan something to do. As I'm making coffee, I hear the reporting conducting an interview with a gas station owner, which I found to be very odd. After a few more minutes, I actually turned around to view the tv and noticed they were still talking about gas shortages and lines, etc. - all of which I could not understand why they'd be talking about on the Island Weather channel. I go back to the kitchen and pour a cup of coffee and return to the couch. And then I see it…the ominous warning scrolling across the bottom of the television screen. It takes me a minute to put everything together, but then it was like the three matching cherry pictures lit up the slot machine that was my brain at that point. I read that there was a large earthquake off Chile which had triggered a tsunami. My initial thought after the information registered? "Oh crap."
I put down my coffee, changed from pj's to actual clothes, grabbed the keys, told Joe there was a tsunami warning and then walked as fast as my little short legs would take me, out to the car. Then our landlord starts talking to me from out her window. It was nice of her to tell me about the tsunami, but I began to get irritated when she continued on chatting. Seriously; it was not coffee-chat hour. After a few more minutes, I was able to end the conversation and getaway. I drove down the street and saw the lines of cars waiting for their turn at the gas pumps. I weighed my 3 gas station options and chose the one I thought would be best. As I waited, I tried calling my sister to let her know that I was safe, but apparently the rest of Hawaii was also trying to call their families because my 4 calls didn’t go through. I was, however, able to send text messages (yay for text messages!). After waiting for about 15 minutes (which considering the circumstances, I didn’t think was too bad), I slowly and cautiously crept the ol’ 4 Runner up the pump and filled her up. Once she was nice and full, I checked the time, considered my options and decided I had time to go to the store and see if there was any bottled water left.
It was probably close to 8AM by this time and I knew that I had to scoot pretty fast, considering Joe didn’t bat an eye when I told him before leaving the house. I made my way over to the Don (Don Quixote – it entertains me so, calling it “the Don”), grabbed a cart and headed straight for the water isle. As I figured, there was practically nothing left. I did manage to find a few large bottles of Dasani and one hidden 6 pack (no, not beer) and tossed them into my cart. I figured it really wasn’t the time to stand there doing my usual price comparison. After I felt confident there was enough water for the two of us to last a couple days, I did the truffle shuffle to the snack isle. Naturally, the isle I went to was filled with people tossing can after can of Spam into their cart. Yes, I was chuckling to myself upon seeing such a sight. Unlike the locals, I tossed a few boxes of granola bars into the cart and maybe 6 cans of soup since I knew we had more at home. On my way back to the check out, it occurred to me that we might need handi-wipes, band-aids, etc. so I diverted the fast moving cart over to that section of the store and filled up with such said products. Oh, and pedialite – always a good source of electrolytes.
Once everything was packed up not-so-nicely into the back of the car, Hula Girl and I sped off towards home. We got there in less than 5 minutes and I hurried into the house to wake Joe up since I’d heard on the radio that the wave was supposed to hit just after 11AM. However, this time when I told Joe, he actually listened and got up. I was lazily drinking my coffee, figuring he’d tell me I was overreacting, but no, no. He was up, packing stuff up, telling me to get a bag and pack up whatever I didn’t want to lose. And me being me say “Do I have time to take a shower?” Because showering before a possible tsunami is at the top of the priority list. My checklist of things to do: Shower. Check. Shave legs. Check. Shampoo, condition, rinse. Check. Makeup on. Check. Pick proper bikini and outfit. Check and check. And if you’re wondering, Joe looked at me like I was ridiculous when I frolicked about wearing the new sundress I bought for our Valentine’s Day adventure. Hey, just because one is preparing for a natural disaster, doesn’t mean said person doesn’t have to look like a natural disaster.
Joe and I packed up our stuff and importants in record time, bringing load after load out to the car. Our landlord, again, stopped us to chat, saying she was staying put. We told her we were going with the “better safe than sorry” premise. We locked up the house, not knowing if it would be there when we returned (which, is a really weird, sort of sad feeling), jumped in the car and headed to base to get a few things from Joe’s work. We discussed where to go and ended up deciding on a spot near the ocean, but high in elevation. I know – it doesn’t really make sense, but it’s what we did. Apparently, most others got to the Pali Lookout early so there was no room anywhere – people where parked up and down both sides of the highway. We did have a great view though – I was able to see some whales playing in the water!
After waiting until 2P, just about 3 hours after the tsunami was meant to hit, and no sign of any big wave, we decided to leave. We had to drive through Hawaii Kai to get home and it was practically a ghost town. We tried going to eat in town, but nothing was open – it was really eerie. We continued to drive and ended up going to the only open place in Kailua, and the place was packed. Everyone was celebrating the fact there was no great wave that wiped out our little slice of heaven. And so we had a pitcher of beer and basket of curly fries to celebrate our non-tsunami. After about an hour there, we headed back home, which, thankfully, was still there (intact even!).
I’m really thankful that Joe was here for my first tsunami warning. I’m fairly certain that if he was gone and I was alone, I would have lost my mind and panicked, not packing anything useful. But now that I have one warning under my belt, I feel confident that if it happens again, I’ll know what to do to be prepared. After all, I’ve heard once (or a hundred) times, preparation is the key to success. And a success it was!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)