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Political Commentary>
The Great Tsunami
April 4, 2010
My wife and I purchased a condo in Hawaii in May 2008 as an investment. As you can well imagine, the crash the following September dealt a devastating blow to our investment strategy. So for awhile it looks like we will be spending our vacations in our little condo.
Because we are spending all our extra time there and getting to know the state quite well, I thought it would be appropriate to blog occasionally about the island paradise of Hawaii.
And what better time to write the first column than after the tsunami?
My wife, her mother and our dog were in our condo when the earthquake in Chile spawned what could have been a devastating tidal wave, and that’s what this first blog is all about.
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The phone rang at 7:00am Saturday morning. “Sammy! Did I wake you?” asked my sister.
“No, I’ve been awake for an hour. What’s up?”
“I just heard on the news that the earthquake in Chile caused a tsunami and that its arrival in Hawaii in imminent!”
Panic grabbed me by the throat. Running into the living room, I snapped on the television.
“What time is it in Hawaii? Is it too early to call Veronica?” she asked.
“It’s 4:00AM Hawaii time,” I replied.
“I think you should call her,” she insisted.
“OK,” I said. “Let me see what I can find out.”
Saturday morning television was paying no attention. I logged onto the Internet and zoomed to the Drudge Report. There it was. The tsunami would hit at 11:19AM Hawaii time. The warning alarms would sound at 6:00AM to rouse the populace.
By now it was almost 4:30AM in Hawaii. I knew that my wife might have a heart attack with a call in the middle of the night, because she would assume something terrible had happened to someone in the family. I shook my head. Oh, well.
I debated whether to call her on her cell or the landline. Her cell phone has a distinctive ring for each member of the family, and she would know it was me. Thinking it through, I opted for the landline because it sat next to the bed, and sometimes my wife will leave her cell phone in her purse. Reluctantly, I dialed.
“Hello?” said a faraway voice.
“Mrs. Grier, this is your husband.” I waited for her head to clear so she would hear me. “I called because the earthquake in Chile has caused a tsunami, and it’s going to hit Hawaii less than seven hours from now.”
Veronica woke up quickly.
We talked about what she should do. Wake her mom, pack some food and water, and take her and the dog up into the mountains in the center of the island.
It was the only safe place for an earthquake that first calculations showed might have spawned a 40-foot wave of water hurtling 500 miles per hour across the ocean. Experts in Hawaii were beginning to believe that the water might wash over the islands without even slowing.
Death was racing across the Pacific.
(Remember that the tsunami that killed so many people in Indonesia was an 8-foot wave.)
But back to the moment.
What I did not know is that the state since 1:30AM was already evacuating the low-lying areas around the island: Waikiki, Kailua, Ewa Beach, and Makaha with its nearly 10,000 homeless sleeping on the beaches. Even though the homeless refused to cooperate and remained in their makeshift shelters on the beach, gridlock on the roads around Makaha near where we own our condo already prevented a getaway.
My wife would have to ride out the tsunami in our complex.
So my wife filled the bathtub with water, pulled our car from the underground parking beneath our condo and drove to a hotel parking garage down the street where she safely parked it on the fourth floor. She returned to wake her mother and give herself time to consider the advice she was getting from our on-site security.
An hour before the water was expected to arrive — by now reports were suggesting that an 8-foot wall of water would hit the islands — my wife and mother-in-law and faithful hound rode the elevator to the 16th floor where they and others with apartments on the lower three floors were invited to wait out the arrival of an ocean unleashed.
I spent my day watching Fox News and the unfolding drama. One of the men in our complex put a professional television camera from his business on the 16th floor balcony and through his Facebook “wall” ran a live data stream across the Internet. I was able to see my wife, the dog, the mother-in-law, and hear them talking about what was to come.
It was a strange experience — news on the one side, family in Hawaii awaiting the wave on the other. It felt a little too weird, being connected “live” with the apartment where my wife and her mother were facing danger. It was a little like talking to a loved one in a war zone while someone is shooting at him.
A tsunami is not like an ocean wave created by the wind. An ocean wave may be fifty or in the worst of storms a hundred feet in depth. A tsunami can be 5, 10, even 15 minutes from front end to back. So when the water hits the shore, it keeps coming — and coming. If you remember the videos taken in Indonesia, the water was like a river scooping up everything in its path. If the land rises, the wave can rapidly build height as it approaches landfall. By the time the wave reached landfall at Hilo, Hawaii, during the 1960 tsunami, the topology caused it to grow into a 35-foot wall of water, destroying 500 homes and killing sixty people.
My family lived in Hawaii when the 1960 tsunami hit the islands. Grabbing us out of bed in the middle of the night, our parents took us to the Marine Corps officers club in Kaneohe that overlooks the bay. My recollection was that Dad was in mess dress, Mom in a cocktail dress, and they and the rest of the marines threw a tidal wave party. We kids drank Shirley Temples, ate whatever we wanted, and watched movies. When finally given the “all clear”, we returned home exhausted.
But this most recent tsunami was about fear. Fear of the destructive force of a tsunami with the potential to wipe the islands clean of civilization.
Every boat and ship on the island had gone out to sea, hoping that the giant wave would pass beneath.
Humpback whales could be seen off the shores of Oahu breaching in the hours leading up to the tsunami’s arrival. But a half hour before the wave began its approach, observers in helicopters say the whales rapidly headed out to sea. My wife said our dog was very restless and would not settle down or leave her side.
The smell of tsunami was in the air.
I spent much time in prayer for the Hawaiian people, my wife, my mother-in-law and “me boy” as I call our dog.
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“We dodged a bullet,” said one newscaster after the event.
“No,” replied the meteorologist he was speaking to, “Hawaii was granted a miracle.”
My wife and mother-in-law drove into Waikiki Saturday night. The atmosphere was one of collective thanks that all was well in the islands. Everyone was greeting everyone else that passed by, having shared a near death experience. It was a population whose perspective had been transformed.
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Unable to sleep that night, my wife lay awake in bed with the dog beside her.
It’s at times like these that she has deep conversations with God. Of course, it is a one-way conversation. But this night, when she asked God why Hawaii was spared when so many people had been killed in Indonesia by the tsunami that struck there, she heard an answer as clearly as if God had spoken.
“I reached out and quieted the waters.”
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The next night again they drove into Waikiki, this time to buy a t-shirt from Crazy Shirts that shouted to the world, “Tsunami Survivor, 27 February 2010.”
The atmosphere was the same as the previous night. Everyone in the city — locals and tourists alike smiling and exchanging happy, grateful hellos — their personalities transformed by the mercy of the Almighty, whether they believed He had a hand in it or not.
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My wife and mother-in-law and dog are back now.
For our future vacations, too, my wife and I will return to our little condo.
My prayer is that the next great tsunami waits another 50 years before taking aim at the Hawaiian Islands.
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