The tsunami warning sirens went of this morning at 6am sharp, this was not a test. By 7am the entire neighbor hood was out in the streets. The fist wave of the tsunami coming from the Chile earthquake was expected to hit Hawai’i at 11.05am, so there was plenty time to watch the News to see how the State was handling the situation.

On of the first thing that came to my mind was, now that everybody in Lahaina was busy evacuating and the county possibly closing the roads near the the shore, that Honolua Bay must be super uncrowded to surf. I could not help it but take the drive up to the Bay and see for my self and yes indeed there were 5 crazy ones surfing perfect waves to themselves. The sets were over head and the conditions were nearly perfect. Around 10.30am coast guard boats were patrolling up and down the coast to get people out of the water. All people were advised to seek higher grounds, neighborhoods in the evacuation zone turned into gosttowns. The neighborhood we were visiting our friend at, up on the hill, was packed with cars and people. There were people everywhere camping out on the side of the highway the public live pretty much shut down for 3 hours.

H-Bay uncrowded like in the 60ties

Everybody was now waiting for 11.05am and the arrival of the first wave. We were watching the action on TV at our friends house. The live camera was pointing to Hilo Bay on the Big Island, where the tsunami was expected to hit first. At around 11.23am we could see how the water resided from the bay. Now everybody was in suspense on how forceful the water would come back. About 3 minutes later the bare reef was showing in the bay and the water started to rush back in to the bay, once the bay was filled up again the whole thing repeated it self for about 4 times. That was it, we saw a tsunami in action. Lucky for everybody the tsunami only materialized in a rapid change of the sea level and not in a crazy wave washing out the shorelines. There were no reports do damage and injury.

My condolences go out to the people in Chile who were not as lucky as us here on Hawai’i.

Cheers,

Mike