Tsunami Tsaturday

Due to the devastating earthquake in Chile, Hawaii was put on the tsunami warning list. Friday late night I had start hearing about it and read up on it a little, but there wasn't a whole lot of information yet.

Then our wonderful loooong day began at 4:30am with banging on our door. After realizing it was the second set of loud banging on our door and that whoever was on the other side was not going to be leaving until we answered it, I made Wolfgang get up and see what was going on (It's a man's job.)

It ended up being our neighbor telling us about the tsunami warning, and that the warning sirens around the island would be going off starting at 6am, and that we needed to leave at 6 and head to the stake center, which is the designated place for our area to go in case of emergencies and disasters such as this.

Needless to say we couldn't really go back to sleep, so we laid around for a little while longer (we had only gone to bed about 1 1/2 hours before this happened) then started to get ready to evacuate. We were a little concerned, but not freaking out, and living on the second floor helped us to not worry too much about our belongings.

So at 6am the creepy sirens went off and we had our backpack ready to go with supplies in case of a disaster and started to head over to the church (stake center) which is pretty much right next to were we live. On the way over we saw people packing up their cars, carrying huge suitcases out of their house, the whole bit. On our way over we saw some ward members, then got word that our bishop said to just stay home since the tsunami wasn't suppose to hit until 11:20am, and that if you live on the first floor, just move up to the second floor. I was really glad when I heard this, because I was not looking forward to staying in the church all morning for something that was most likely going to be anticlimactic.

We ended up going back to our apt, and two of our friends came over who lived close to the beach or who were kicked out of their apt even though they lived on the second floor (I think they didn't want to be liable for their tenants). So all morning we just hung out and waited for 11:20 to come around

Can't you tell we felt REAL stressed...

It was kind of a weird feeling, just waiting around hours for something potentially really bad to happen, but like I said we all felt at peace and had a feeling it wasn't going to be anything big. 11:20am came and gone, and nothing really happened. It was kinda fun to watch what very little action was going on, on the Hawaii news station with the tide fluctuating back and forth rapidly.

All in all Saturday was a very looong day, and thankfully nothing dramatic happened. It was definitely a great learning experience for all- for the well prepared, and especially the severely unprepared. It was somewhat comical to see/hear of some people freaking out. It most definitely showed some things that I need to improve on, and what to do the next time something else like this happens again. We were so blessed that no damage was done on any of the Hawaiian Islands, and our hearts go out to those in Chile and Okinawa and other places around the world who have been added to the victims of the recent natural disasters.

Remember to count your blessings every day, and to pray for those who have been effected by the earth quakes and other natural disasters.


p.s., I'm really sad I couldn't find the picture that was shown on the news found in a grocery store the morning of the tsunami, where on the spam isle it said on a hand-written note "only take 2 per family."