Tsunami and a sunrise...

Well, we had an interesting weekend....
Friday, I got home from work, had dinner with Joey and then got out my computer to start building pages. We've been writing them all week.
Before I logged into Site Central, I decided to check Facebook and there it was on a friends status....

Tsunami Watch 2011

What?! Here we are, just over a year past our last Tsunami warning where we were woken up at 4am and told we had to leave our home and head for higher ground. That ended up being what we lovingly refer to as a "Baby Tsunami." This wasn't a warning yet so maybe nothing would happen... we have plenty of watches that never turn into warnings...

We turned on the TV and flashing across our screen were the devastating pictures from Japan. WOW... this is no Baby... that was at 8:45 pm HST.

So we were captivated and glued to the TV for the next hour hoping that we wouldn't have to pack and leave like last year... I flashed back to the stress of that day and I sooo didn't want to do it again.... but as I watched, I realized it could be so much worse. Japan had no warning... If we got hit, it wouldn't be for at least 6 hours so we had plenty of time to get to a safe place.

At 9:45 we were officially upgraded to a Tsunami Warning. We would definitely be impacted at around 3:15 am... the sirens would go off shortly... so we started packing up everything we could. This part went much smoother than last time. We remembered everything we wish we had last time... snacks, etc.... and none of our family was awake b/c it was the middle of the night in Georgia and it would be hours before they woke up and found out... so we didn't have all of the interruptions like last time and we would wait until we had already evacuated to let them know...
Sorry, we love you guys... but it was soooo hard to get things accomplished last year with texts and phone calls every 5 seconds... ;)

We got everything packed up and loaded into our cars.... this year, we also have Max... he could definitely tell something was wrong and that we were stressed. He would go back and forth between me & Joey and just stare at us like "what the ????" Especially when I started packing up his toys and food. ;)
Looking back, it was pretty funny.

Around 11:30 we had everything we needed in the cars and we started up the road. We wanted to go to the park where we waited last time but since it was the middle of the night, it was closed.

We ended up in a gas station parking lot.... we bought some coffee (it was gonna be a loooong night) and they said we could wait in the parking lot. We put the top down on the convertible for a while but then it started raining....

Finally, the park opened its gates and we headed over there. Joey started to put up his little one-man tent but it started raining so we never ended up using it. We waited in the car...
12 am..... 1 am... 2 am.... listening to the radio about the few places between us and Japan to see what happened there and what we might be in for.

They expected Haleiwa and all of the North Shore (where we live) to get hit pretty hard. Waikiki was supposed to be a disaster... then it came... 3 am... water started receding Kauai, the one Hawaiian island that was supposed to get hit before us. More waiting...

Water started receding at Diamondhead (next to Waikiki) over 300 feet, reef completely exposed.... it's about to hit... the first 2 waves were only about 2-3 ft...  There would be more... and history has taught Hawaii not to be too quick to run back home. The Tsunami that destroyed Haleiwa before started with 2 ft waves... later, 19 ft waves came and wiped it out.
We decided to take a nap and we would check the radio peridoically to see what happens. This could take HOURS... and they told us it would. We were delirious at this point. Sleep never came. It just wasn't going to happen and then the sun started to come up... I had been awake for 24 hours.

We did get some bigger waves but thankfully, the destructive waves never came for us...
Maui and the Big Island got destruction with waves over 8 ft but nothing like what happened in Japan.
8 ft waves is nothing for Hawaii... we see 50+ ft waves in the winter... But these are different... they don't stop when they get to shore....

At around 8 am, they downgraded us from Warning to Advisory. This basically means "we think it might be over so you can go home but keep an eye and an ear out... we may just tell you to run again."
Our roads were still closed so we went and got some McDonalds and hoped they'd be open by the time we were done eating.

At around 8:30 we were told that the roads to our home were open again and we could head that way. YAY!! So we went home and tried to lay down... Then the banging started. They are re-doing part of the building that we live in. The walkways are part of this and there happens to be one about 2 feet from my door. This is the one he decided to work on this day, so it wan't a distant banging that's just annoying. It was the kind that you cant even drown out if you put in ear-plugs... as if he was in my room banging as hard as he could right above my head. Great... I havent cared at all about the construction, I know it has to happen... but TODAY???? We've been up ALL NIGHT. We just want to sleep... he didn't stop until after 7pm. So i was awake for over 36 hours before I ever got a wink of sleep.

It was a stressful 12 hours, to say the least but our home is safe, our jobs are safe (both of which were in danger.) and WE are safe.


My heart goes out to Japan.

We have a lot of Japanese visitors here on Oahu. Yes, they are great for tourism, but it is more than that. Hawaii has had a long-standing relationship with Japan. I have only known this for a couple of years.

At Skydive Hawaii, most of our customers are Japanese. I have started to love the little bit of their culture that I have had a glimpse of. They are kind, caring HAPPY people and the genuinely care for others. I started to recognize why anime is the way it is... They really do always have HUGE smiles, constant giggles and crazy clothes...


I have grown to love it... and to see their happy faces replaced with ones with such desperation is just so sad and it breaks my heart.



I think we could all learn a great deal from how the Japanese people as a whole live their lives. Even in crisis, they are not stealing, looting etc. You know that would not be the case here in America. We are a culture all about "ME."

Please, if you can, give something to the relief effort. This is the biggest earthquake ever to hit Japan and the Tsunami has caused such devastation. They think there will be at least 10,000 fatalities and over $300 million to rebuild (and that is a conservative #)

Click here for CNN's list of reputable organizations helping Japan