Tuesday was a bit of an odd one for people in Hawaii.  It started out normal enough for me: the final morning of our “spiritual emphasis” time before heading into more meetings and classroom prep for the new school year.  The work day was mostly winding down, I was getting ready for a quick drive to Manoa to take care of a couple of quick errands when the first tsunami alert went off telling us about a probably 7:00 arrival of major waves to the island.  I assumed I had enough time to make the quick trip, which I did.  I probably could have headed back home a little earlier, as the backroads I took were pretty slow (but not as slow as the interstate).  Still, I got home with over a couple of hours to wait.  I responded to texts from family and friends, checked on my neighbors, and called some friends who live in various parts of the island.  And, like most everyone else, I watched news on the television for most of the rest of the night.

Some random observations:

+  I had forgotten how necessary the television can be for making sense of an event like this.  By the time the “false missile crisis” was over, there wasn’t much time for tv coverage.  But storms and tsunamis are a different story.  Lots of news reports with images of various beaches across the island chain.  Lots of press conferences.  A few live shots of people in Waikiki leaving their hotels to walk on the beach when they really shouldn’t have.

+  The leadership from the front (on the television) seemed pretty solid.  They spoke confidently and consistently.  They were able to relay a sense of calm, even as they reminded everyone that waves would likely wrap around each island and not just hit one or two places.  It was impressive seeing the whole system roll out.

+  Not to sound flippant, but the whole experience felt like waiting for Godzilla to show up.  Waves were tracked station by station, with the station on Midway Island being particularly vital.  There was as much talk of energy moving as there was of waves, which was interesting.  That something could travel so far (and all the way to the coast of California, where it still caused property damage) is sobering.

+  It was weird waking up Wednesday morning to very little on the television about the events of the night before (comparatively, at least).  It was all back to normal.  There was still a bit of caution until the final call was made Wednesday morning.  The Starbucks where I’m writing this opened up an hour late (and they are close to water).  And there wasn’t much talk about it at work today, as I suppose we had all moved on to other things.

There has been one interesting article about the event worth a read.  This article talks about why such a strong earthquake didn’t produce what many thought it would.  It’s good that such a reflection can happen; I’m grateful that things didn’t get anywhere near as bad as they could have.

(image from Spectrum News)