Hi everyone. I'm sure you have all heard about the earthquake in Chile and the resulting tsunami headed for Hawai'i. Sus and I woke up this morning planning to head out for another Saturday at the beach, but we immediately heard the tsunami siren echoing up the valley from Honoka'a. Kimberly came down to our cabin as we were eating breakfast to tell us about the situation.
Luckily Honoka'a is set back from the sea on a 1000 foot cliff. The farm being even higher at over 2000 feet we knew we were safe, so we headed down the mountain into cell phone range to call our families. Our friend Mike saw us on the side of the highway and offered to take us to a spot he knows where we could watch for the swell of water that was expected. We heard there would be a wall of water from 6-12 feet in height heading past the island and we wanted to see it firsthand. Being from Boston we have no natural disasters except hurricanes, and we only get a storm that warrants evacuation once or twice a decade.
The waves were supposed to hit Hilo, about 45 miles south of us, at 11:00 AM. We waited until 11:30 and didn't see anything. Maybe we missed it, or maybe we couldn't see anything from 1200 feet up. Now we're back in town at Chase and Mohamed's place, watching the news and glad that the worst waves that hit us were only 3 or 4 feet high. Some people even surfed through the morning down in Kona. In any case, we're fine and happy, but please send your prayers and energy to those in Chile who have been hit hardest. Take care.
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Watching it from halfway around the world and knowing you were there was a little surreal, although we knew you were pretty high up and unlikely to be at the beach in the midst of all that! Still, it was quite a relief to get the call from Honoka'a that all was well. The Hawaiians really seem to have their act together on that. What a system! I thinking back to the "Tsunami evacuation" sign in your earliest post. Who knew that would actually come into play?
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