Hawaii Tusnami

[Peter Luch]

Well it's 6:00am and the sirens are blazing.
All coastal areas are being evacuated.
All ships in harbors are told to leave and no arriving ships are being allowed into Honolulu.

Evacuations are also being done in Waikiki.

They are still not sure of the wave size but as it gets closer there are lots of bouy's that will collect data and they should get a pretty good idea.

Wave expected to hit our island around 11:17, Honolulu 11:25

We are around 800 feet in elevation so no worrys for us.

Aloha, Pete
P.S. Will post pics if we get any.

[Peter Luch]

The whole state is active, all tv stations are running non-stop news on where to go and where to get away from.

Really something to see.

One thing is our civil defense is second to none, they are always prepared for this kind of stuff.
We were getting updates all night via text messages on our cell phones, pretty cool!

Aloha, Pete

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Peter,

Good luck!

Has there been any estimates of the size of the wave yet?

[Greg Peterson]

Good luck. Be keeping an eye on this thread.

[Peter Luch]

Right now the estimate is for 6 ft but that is a very rough guess.

There are tons of bouys around tha islands which collect wave data and once the swell passes some they will get a real good idea of the actual size.

Aloha, Pete

[Peter Luch]

Web cam right in Kona

http://www.konaweb.com/index.shtml#WEBCAM

[Peter Luch]

Another web cam at the Hilton up the coast

http://www.hiltonwaikoloavillage.com/webcam/livewebcam.cfm

[Bruce Page]

I just read about it on Google News. It sounds like Hilo could get hit hard. My hippie sister lives above Hilo in Volcano.
Stay safe!

[Jack Wilson]

Thanks for those webcam links, I'll keep an eye on those. We'll be praying for those in Hawaii.

[Peter Luch]

Bruce,

If she lives where you said she is no where near trouble zones and should be safe.

Most of Hilo is a low elevation and is being evacuated. The airport there is being closed and evacuated.

Aloha, Pete

[Gene Crain]

Here in southern Baja we are under a " higher surf than normal" warning...not expected to be as big an impact as in Hawaii but we should see something.

Gene Crain
plantasymaderas dot com

[Gene Crain]

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/?region=1&id=pacific.2010.02.27.175055

current info

[Joe Pelonio]

Even up here in WA there's a Tsunami "Watch" along the coast. My son happens to be in Ocean Shores today, with 450 EMTs at a conference.
Hopefully there is no problem there but if there is at least there's plenty of help.

Apparently there are many levels of warning, and the worst is Hawaii right now. Hope everyone gets to higher ground or upper floors of the hotels in time.

[Peter Luch]

Non-event, nothing to see here..........................what a letdown..........:D

[Steve Schlumpf]

Been watching it non-stop on the news for the last couple of hours - glad it was a non-event! Big waves are cool - but no one needs the destruction.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Non-events are good! At work.....and in this case!:D

[Gene Crain]

yeah...non event here also...at the most a 3ft swing...you could see the drop (around 1pm CST) much more than the rise a ( around 1:17PM) but we marked the water lines on the sand and there was a definite swing...plus the kids in the hood had fun......waiting... and they have a hard time doing that !


Gene Crain
plantasymaderas dot com

[Shawn Pixley]

Oddly enough Ventura California had some damage. In Ventura harbor some boats were grounded, buoys damaged and some docks broke loose due to the small (2.2') Tsunami. Unfortunately, the tsunami occured when we were having a minus tide. My house an boat were unaffected.

[Van Huskey]

It always seems odd that when you expect a tragedy it rarely meets expectation (good) but it is when you don't expect it things tend to be worse than one could ever manage.

[Peter Luch]

As a follow up......
I said it was a non-event but that was only concerning the tusnami itself.
The evacuation was a huge event and it went really smooth considering the tens of thousands across the islands who had to leave homes and move to high ground.
In Kona the traffic ran smooth but crowded in some areas, only thing people went crazy on was gas which ran out at some stations. Costco opened at 6am for people to get supplies.
Hilo Bay did get some wild tide surges but nothing going over normal high tide lines.
Every boat in the marina went out and stayed out for many hours so it looked like a huge fishing tournament was going on, pretty cool.
Not much else to report, sure some things will come out in the next couple of days.
Aloha, Pete

[Greg Peterson]

The silver lining is you know how well the evacuation process performs and what tweaks may assist it in the future. Call it a good 'fire drill'.

Now if we could just predict earthquakes.

Haiti and now Chile. Interesting times. I feel for the folks in those countries. I can not even begin to imagine how devastating these events are to the individuals. I try to imagine how I would be impacted by a major quake and short of living off grid (no heat, water, electric, income, possibly even no shelter), I can't begin to fully appreciate the consequences.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

As far as science has advanced, it still has a long way to go and a lot to learn. This is especially true in accurately predicting natural disasters.

A certain portion of the population will regard this "non-event" as a trivial occurrence to be ignored the next time because the tsunami wasn't disastrous this time. That's a shame because those folks will tend to ignore the warnings in the future and become part of the statistics.

[Joe Pelonio]

One thing they are talking about here, is that if we have a similar quake, 8.0 or above, there will be only 20 minutes for the coastal people to evacuate before the big wave comes in. Apparently our offshore fault is such that the tsunami would return to the coast rather than going across
the Pacific.

[Peter Luch]

Ken,

Actually here not many people will ignore the next event. Everyone who lives here has respect for the ocean and knows how unpredictable it can be.
Now visitors, that's another thing.

Nobody complained or harassed the people at roadblocks even though they kept them up until 2:30pm. One hour after the tsunami warning center gave the all clear.
I talked to a lot of people today who were evacuated and everyone really only talked about how well it all went.
I guess it's a little different mindset when living on a rock.

Aloha, Pete