Tsunami watch

Well, I was going to post part II of my Las Vegas trip today but instead I'm on tsumani alert. Just to get this out of the way:

We're fine. We live outside of the evacuation zone. The waves probably won't be that high but, even if they are, Pearl Harbor will dampen the effect before they get to us. No worries.

Last night Zac and I were over at Pearl Harbor, bowling with friends as a send-off for one of Zac's coworkers who is going to the mainland for a few months of training. (Before reporting back to Hawaii to be assigned to a ship.) After we got done bowling Zac and I decided to go over to the pool hall on Pearl. It was nice and vacant so I was able to work on bettering my poor pool skills without sharks hovering over the table, wanting the table for their next game.

As we entered the hall, we noticed on the big-screen tv turned to CNN that a earthquake had hit Chile. Though the ticker on the bottom of the screen mentioned a tsunami warning for areas around Chile, it didn't occur to Zac or me that perhaps that earthquake would cause a tsunami for us. We played a few games and headed home.

Around 4:30 this morning (Hawaii time) my phone rang, which startled the hell out of me and rattled me out of my deep sleep. You know something's wrong if you get a phone call from certain people between 11pm and 6am. Turns out Megan's fine, the family is fine, she was just calling to let me know that we were in trouble. Because I knew about the earthquake in Chile from the night before, I wasn't surprised when Megan said that Hawaii is under a tsunami watch, but it took my clouded brain a second to understand what she was saying. After I assured her that we had tsunami sirens to warn us if something came along, I tried to go back to sleep. About 30 minutes later a Hawaii friend of mine called me too, to let me know that there were going to be sirens going off at 6am and evacuations for the coastal areas.

Now I realized that maybe I should get up and out of bed, if only because now my mind was racing through possibilities. I headed downstairs and turned on the news. Of course all of the local news stations are all over this. I think they're being incredibly restrained, truthfully. I know often times local news stations like to sensationalize the news of the day but this morning they are doing a good job of being informative but not hysterical. The gist of the news is this: the tsunami will reach the Big Island around 11:00 Hawaii time, Oahu a short time later - maybe a half-hour (which is rather remarkable when you think about the distance between islands); there will be some sort of decent-sized waves, perhaps 6ft based on current estimates; people in evacuation zones will need to leave their homes for higher ground.

I called my parents and my sister to keep them abreast of what's going on out here, just so they won't worry (as much). At this point it's just wait-and-see. The waves won't get here for another 4.5 hours, so at some point I'm going to go a little mad if I keep watching the news coverage. That's the tough part about a story like this - there is little new news to report so it's just the same info over and over. Zac suggested we should toss in a movie, but it seems strange to watch "Guys and Dolls" while people are already lined up six deep at the gas station behind our house.

If anything interesting happens, I'll be sure to let you guys know. For now I'm going to make a pot of coffee and enjoy the breakfast that Zac just cooked up for us. You'll just have to wait for the second-half recap of Las Vegas.