Tsunami 2010

Friday night is usually when Kasala and I stay up a little later and watch a movie. Last night was just that... we watched a few episodes of Bizarre Foods on Netflix and then I headed off to bed around 1am. I honestly felt as if I had been in bed for an hour or so but about 10 minutes later Kasala came in and woke me up with the news of a tsunami. I didn't get up right away but a few minutes later I made my way back out to the family room. We sat and watched the breaking news on TV and of course jumped on Facebook to see if any of our friends were awake. After being awake for about 30 minutes Kasala told me to start getting our emergency things ready, pack our clothes and get ready to leave.

I had talked with both my parents earlier and while Kasala left to fill up the gas tank I talked with Dad about what we needed to do. Several times before we had gotten our food kits ready and then would eat them little by little. Thats the only bad thing about having good food in your 72 hour kit..... A few neighbors around us were already leaving around 3 am and Kasala was out talking with his residents about what they needed to do to prepare for the tsunami. All the news reports said the same thing, "Prepare for 2-12 foot waves. Have enough food for several hours to several days, sirens will sound at 6am, check the reports and get to higher grounds." The evacuation plan for BYU-Hawaii is to go to the Stake Center, behind the temple, or to the second floor of the dorms and apartments. For some reason this just didn't sit well in my stomach. I guess I didn't realize that the waves would have to go from the beach, knock out all the houses between the beach and our apartments and then get to us. BUT.. I did realize that whatever the waves were bring would end up on our door step. So we packed up and were out of the house around 4am. Terina thought that it was time to get up and didn't go back to sleep until about 11am. We drove up to Pupukea. It is pretty much on top of a mountain and you can look down on to the ocean. It was a loooong day. Terina didn't really go back to bed or take a nap while we were up there. The only time she fell asleep was when we had to walk back down from the Heiau... and then Mia and I had to carry all 42 pounds of her down the mountain. Anyways... the short of it is that nothing really happend. We were safe, prepared and calm all day. I was so grateful for Kasala. He seemed to know exactly what to do and stayed calm the whole time. I felt safe and knew that if I trusted him and did what he said that everything would be alright. I was very scared and nervous for what could happen but knew that because we were prepared that we would be alright.