![[text]](http://ilind.net/gallery_2010/tsunami/source/image/img_8334.jpg)
The students at Kaaawa Elementary School hold regular tsunami drills where they walk from the school to the upper part of Kaaawa up by our house, safely out of the tsunami inundation zone.
Many Kaaawa residents did the same thing today, driving up and setting up camp along Olohu Road with their kids, dogs, cats, at least a couple of birds. Engine 21 from the Kaaawa Station evacuated to the corner at the lower end of Olohu. We moved seven of a friend’s eight cats to a temporary cat shelter on our street.
We watched and waited for a chance to see a tsunami, while in the background we worried about what might happen if a big wave actually hit.
It was hot. It was too early in the day for beer to flow. Radios reported news from Hilo and Maui.
We spotted a few whales, watched some nice surf, talked with friends and neighbors, but I don’t think we ever saw anything that could be attributed to the tsunami.
Everyone kept repeating, “nothing happened, and that’s good.”
Everyone also knew, though, that they didn’t completely mean it. At some level, we wanted to see a tsunami from a safe vantage point.
In any case, click on the photo for a look at our little corner of Kaaawa during today’s tsunami evacuation.
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i think many secretly feel that way with any natural disaster! of course, with some of the comments on the news blogs about being angry with the precautions, those people really don’t understand what it means for a whole village (Laupahoehoe, Hamoa) to be wiped off the earth simply because there was no precaution taken.
We thought that the CBS affiliate had the best tsunami coverage for Hilo. They had a stationary camera in the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel focused on Coconut Island. Thanks to that camera, we saw the level of water beneath the foot bridge to the island rise and fall several times over a period of an hour or so. It is hard to say how much the level of the water changed, but I would estimate 2-3 feet. We also saw the water flowing beneath the bridge change directions several times, as indicated by changes in the direction of the water’s turbulence.
I watched the day unfold online from my home office in the Western suburbs of Chicago. It brought back a flood of memories of waking up in Hilo in 1960 to half of our hometown gone, destroyed and people missing. The live feed from Hilo Bay showing Coconut Island gave me chicken skin for sure.
Just glad no one was hurt and there was no damage.
By the way, your pictures of the evacuation in Kaaawa just reminded me so much of what Hawaii is all about…the people, the animals… Love your Feline Fridays, too…we have two cats.
PS. We still have snow on the ground. How I miss “home.”
A hui hou…