1. a large, often destructive, sea wave produced by a submarinenearthquake, subsidence, or volcanic eruption. Sometimes incorrectly called a tidal wave
2. a sudden increase in or overwhelming number or volume of: the tsunami of Olympic visitors
--dictionary.com
First off, my heart goes out to the people of Japan, and anyone with loved ones in Japan. Google has a person finder for the people affected by the tsunami. Hopefully that helps. And mad props to Japan's strict building codes and level of preparedness. It could have been a lot worse, and all of us living in areas vulnerable to natural disasters should look to Japan as an example.
Hawaii is fine. I'm old and go to bed super early now, but was woken up by the most obnoxious, high pitched sound I've ever heard in my life. After sleepily glaring at the general direction, I was told by my grandparents that it was the tsunami warning.
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| Boo for being ridiculously hard to find. Apparently the map is in the yellow pages, but who keeps those nowadays? |
Luckily we're not in the inundation zone. I do live within running distance (and for me, that's probably...2 miles) to the airport, which is. I don't think it suffered from water damage - the reason why the airports in Hawaii were closed was because they didn't want to clog up the roads leading up to the airports.
Waikiki was definitely evacuated and I think a lot of tourists had to go up passed the 4th story of their hotels. I think parts of Hawaii Kai was also evacuated, and most of the schools were closed Friday. (Although the lovely public school systems already had Friday as a furlough day, so who knows.)
I didn't have an ocean view, so I decided to not stay up until 3, which is when the tsunami was going to hit. I think there were some damage the next morning, but luckily no one was hurt. The buses didn't run early morning because the tsunami warning was still in effect. On the news there were tapes of people waiting forlornly at a bus station for a bus that wouldn't come. It was sad, yet kind of funny to watch.
Anyways, I decided to call it a day off, and went jogging to see if I could see any tsunami related events at the airport. Nothing spectacular. Of course, as soon as I come back, they removed the tsunami advisory but by then I had made plans. :)
The UH campus was also closed (and I wish I had taken a screenshot of their website!), saying that non essential employees should stay home. I wonder how many grad students went?
Anyways, it's finals week and I know you guys are busy so just know - I'm alive and well. Didn't get into Stanford, btw, but I'll feel like a douchebag complaining about that in light of these events.
Good lucks with finals!
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