We Dogged a Bullet!

The headlines in the Sunday morning newspaper read "We Dogged A Bullet" referring to the tsunami that arrived on time, but was almost unnoticeable! Civil Defense ordered an evacuation from the tsunami inundation areas Saturday 2/27/10 at 6AM. Since we are in one of these areas, we had to be out of our house and off the closed roads by 10AM. The impending tsunami was a result of the 8.8 Chile earthquake.

A friend called us early Saturday morning to warn us, 2 hours before the first sirens. With a yawn and some excitement, I began to move things off the floor to higher ground. Since the expected waves were to be under 10 feet, we figured the worst that could happen is a boulder go through one of our windows and flooding occur. We also moved any objects from the oceanside lanais and lawn. Scott actually mowed the lawn before we left the house!

We had plenty of time to get ready, so there was a calm in the air. The local HPP Emergency Team was out early alerting residents with their bull horns. They touched base with us three times, "Are you guys evacuating?"! After setting up the video camera to film the impending wave, we departed our house at about 10:10AM. We called a few friends and we all went over to a member of Scott's softball team, Larry, on third street.

Well, 11:05 came and went! Looked like no sign of the wave. A Hawaii news station was showing live video of Coconut Island in Hilo. Around 11:20AM it became obvious that water was coming in and out of Hilo Bay - not normal - like a surge of water (see picture above). We never saw what I perceive as a wave, but the scientists said that we were watching a tsunami wave!

We returned home safe and dry!