Sense of Relief

I have to say overall it was a pretty stressful day. We were first notified of the Tsunami warning at 3am this morning by my mother. After finding out that it could possibly be here at around 11:30am late morning I went back to sleep. We again awakened at 6:00am with the sirens going off and they continued to go off every hour thereafter.

We decided to plan out what we were going to do and so we started with our local grocery store which was fortunately the only one left open in our area. Usually the store is pretty empty around this hour but was packed with people purchasing water and supplies. We then started thinking about what we should stick in the car. Obviously the cat had to go with us and I decided to bring a few photo albums, my file folder box with important documents, and my laptop.

I think what was so stressful was the feeling of uncertainty. All the possible scenarios running through my mind and trying not to think about it too hard. We decided to stay in our home which is located on top of the hill but not as high as I would have liked. My mother who lives on the water was forced to evacuate. We basically had 20 minutes from the time we would hear that Hilo would get hit.

The time that Hilo was supposed to be hit you could see no change in the water. About 20-30 minutes later you could see the water receding and going back in at a rapid rate more like a river. We started to see images of what was happening in the Kahului harbor which is on Maui and the water receded so much that you could see the coral reef and fish getting stuck. But fortunately that was about it. In a way its anti-climatic because you are all so prepared for something bigger but mostly its a sense of relief.

(photos by me)

Chile may seem like a world away but the impact of the earthquake hit us in 12 hours. I am very grateful that we are all okay and I thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers as we all went through this today. I can only hope that Chile recovers soon and my thoughts are most definitely with them.