Tsunami

If you checked any news source today, I am sure you heard about our Tsunamis. I have not been able to check the news myself, because I was evacuated.

My neighbor came downstairs at about 6 am to wake me up and tell me that a Tsunami was predicted to arrive at about 11am. We live about one block from the shore, so it didn't take me more than a few minutes to snap awake start to panic.

A few minutes after that, civil defense sirens began to go off, and they went off several times after that (about once an hour or more) for the next 5 or 6 hours. I could hear them all the way inside of the valley and on top of a mountain.

At the sound of the sirens, I panicked...as in, the screaming, sweating kind of panic you see in movies when people are getting attacked by aliens from outer space. I was genuinely afraid. I did not know that the first siren was simply to wake people up so they knew to get to an evacuation area soon.

I got me and my neighbors up to the IAO Valley. Two of us decided to hike to the top, another meandered off and did his own thing. The hike was nice,  but super hot...and in my panic I forgot to bring sunscreen, so the greatest injury I incurred today was sunburn. Otherwise, I am alive and well.

After the state of emergency was declared in the clear, I came back down from my high place and headed home...but police would still not let those of us who lived lower into our homes for another  hour. Roads were blocked. From where I was on the mountain, I could at one point see that the water was sinking away from the shore before a wave hit. It was kind of odd, and a little hard to believe that I was really witnessing it. The waves, however, came in fast but were small. From what I have overheard and been told, there is some damage in Kahului Harbor. The upper part of my neighborhood is undamaged.

I have not even glanced at the houses down the hill and by the water, but I imagine they are suffering minimal damage, if any.

Isaac is on Kauai, but has been in touch and I know that he is safe. Despite being apart from me, he was still a strong head of our household, keeping me on the phone all morning to keep me calm and help me determine the safest and fastest route to safety. I am thankful that in just a month or two, there will be far fewer chances that we'll be separated during an emergency.

Thanks for the concerned calls, texts and etc. I am still off facebook, so if you sent me a message that way I won't read it until after Easter. If it happens again, I plan to do what I did this time (minus the panicking): hike to the top of a mountain. I was surprised to see only 3 other people up there. I kind of expected to see a crowd.