Tsunami Saturday

We were woken at 4am by a phone call from Matt's work telling us to prepare for a tsunami. At first, Matt thought someone was messing with him, but when we turned on the TV, we found out that yes, Hawaii was in fact preparing for a tsunami.

How does one prepare for a tsunami? Well, first we texted everyone we knew and found friends up in Makakilo to take us in (thanks again Buelows and the MacDonalds for offering). Then Matt headed to work...on Ford Island...an island with only 1 bridge, wedged between the ocean and the loch...sometimes the Navy is not the brightest. Alone, I started wondering what to do next so I grabbed the many photo albums we have and brought them all upstairs to our bedroom (higher ground right?) Realized on my 11th trip up the stairs that I really need to convert everything to disc. Great exercise, but not something I need to do when an impending tsunami is upon us. Finally got around to packing clothes, grabbed some food out of the freezer, threw every nonperishable I could find into bags, got flashlights, batteries, water, my UH dissertation stuff and a case of beer. All set, now just need to wake up the little one. I thought waking Makaela would be tough, but she got up and when I told her who we were going to see, she said "oh, I want to party"- atta girl!

The party consisted of 10 adults, 4 toddlers under the age of 3, 4 rambunctious dogs and lots of great food. While the kids played, the adults were glued to the oh-so-captivating news cast of Hilo Bay, waiting, and waiting, and waiting (well you get the picture) for something to happen. The weatherman was hysterical and should probably get a job in a soap opera or a Lifetime movie- everything was so dramatic. Oh well, they need their ratings regardless of how anti-climatic the tsunami was.

When we were in the clear, we packed up and headed home for a 4 hour nap. We were exhausted from the stress, but learned a few lessons:

1- Need to convert our old photos to digital versions

2-Bringing research articles to a tsumani party is a waste of time

3-I'm pretty good at packing for natural disasters (still amazed that I had water and batteries)

4-In times of crisis, one 2 cans of SPAM per person are allowed

5-Hawaii is really good at following crisis directions- overall a great job by the state

and

6-It's great to have such good friends to wait out in impending disaster with.