hawai‘i

• Pre-Evacuation
• 1:36 p.m. … Tsunami Watch issued
• 2:44 p.m. … National Weather Service issues a Tsunami Warning
• 2:56 p.m. … We get an email advising us to leave the building as soon as possible and make our way out of the tsunami zone.

I shut things down at my desk, packed up some snacks (OK, fine, my leftovers from lunch: 1/3 of a baked potato), hit the restroom (best decision ever, IYKYK), and was walking out of the building within 20 minutes.

I had 4 hours before O‘ahu was supposed to see the first effects.

I live in Pālolo Valley, 6.4 miles away. It takes me 25-30 minutes to get home on a typical day. I had 4 hours before O‘ahu was supposed to see the first effects. I knew that getting out of Kaka‘ako would be obnoxious because half the people who live in the area are still “new” to the area in their heads, meaning they pretend not to understand the concept of 4-way stops … but still.

Here’s what we’re dealing with in terms of the Evacuate Now zone. It says orange means Be Prepared to Evacuate, but allow me to demonstrate why this is no bueno.

It took me 3 hours to go the mile-and-a-half to get out of the Tsunami Hazard Area. That’s 3-and-a-half Billy Joel albums. #AskMeHowIKnow

3:18 p.m. HST. I took this photo of the lobby of the University of Hawai‘i Cancer Center as I evacuated the building. I had never, in the 12 years since my department moved into the brand new building, seen the nana doors pulled back to this extent, such that the makai, Diamond Head corner of the lobby was open.

It’s about a 3-minute walk to the lot where I park. Getting out of Lot C was a no-go, so a few of us stood there in the intermittent rain for maybe 5 minutes before the line of cars finally started moving.

3:42 p.m. Stuck on Ilalo Street between Keawe and Coral streets. [Total distance so far from the back of Lot C: 0.2 miles.]

3:57 p.m. Finally cleared Ala Moana Boulevard, via Coral Street, which, BTW, was lined with parked cars makai of Ala Moana . . . which it is not supposed to be, but it usually is. Today was somehow worse than usual. But anyway, somehow wove through all that and made it out of Kaka‘ako Makai. [Total distance thus far: 0.4 miles.]

4:02 p.m. I’m at the end of “Everybody Has a Dream,” the final track on The Stranger — you know, the part where Billy is whistling the outro.

I wonder if I should switch over to the radio broadcast of the Cubs game?

Uhhhh . . . then again. Maybe not. 52nd Street it is! [Total distance thus far: 0.45 miles.]

4:08 p.m. Finally turning right onto Auahi so I can get over to Cooke Street, which will get me all the way up to King. [Total distance thus far: 0.5 miles.]

4:10 p.m. Emergency Alert blares on everyone’s cell phones, and flashes on CarPlay. Civil defense sirens — yes, that’s what we’re going to call them, because it’s different from the blaring from the phones — sound off in the streets. I know, I know . . . Go home. I’m trying, but I’m stuck in the middle of this block now. [Total distance thus far: 0.56 (?) miles.]

4:26 p.m. I am still on Auahi between Coral and Cooke. Cars are not moving.

Also, we have reached the title track of the album. On to Glass Houses. [Total distance thus far: 0.57 (?) miles.]

4:54 p.m. Achievement unlocked: I have now made the turn onto Cooke Street, where no one has moved more than a car’s length in 15 minutes. But, I have officially cleared the intersection! . . . Ish. Cleared-ish. ‘Cause people are still crossing in front of my car, the back of which has not totally cleared the crosswalk, because the guy across the way (coming from Ward) and I had been staring at each other for a long time, so he knew I was there first and had let a whole cycle of cars through in all the other directions and waved that I’d better turn now before somebody else blocks the intersection from the Ala Moana Boulevard side. Not today, Satan. [Total distance thus far: 0.6 miles.]

5:12 p.m. As we reach the final track on Glass Houses, the Emergency Alert comes on again, followed by the civil defense sirens. [Total distance thus far: 0.62 (?) miles.]

On to The Nylon Curtain, the “sonic masterpiece” album: Pressure. Allentown. Goodnight Saigon. Yeah, you know the one.

5:18 p.m. Seriously, nobody is moving. We lurch forward a bit only when somebody gives up, flips a Vicky¹ and takes the path of least resistance, heading back toward Ala Moana Boulevard, back toward the ocean. Hahahaha. They must be new here. Google Maps loves Ala Moana Boulevard, but damn if it isn’t one of the most miserable streets during daylight hours of most days. You’re either heading toward Waikiki, where there are tourists and an inevitable lane closure because there just is, or you’re headed toward Honolulu Harbor, which means you will run into steel plates (as was the case for ~10 years, but they’ve mostly paved it now) + random lane closures, or just random coned-off no-right-turn-onto-Alakea-sucka! like I did last week, which meant that I made it to Kuakini Plaza Pharmacy with literally only 1 minute to spare Friday afternoon. [Total distance thus far: 0.63 (?) miles.]

¹ Tribute to my friend Vicky from Provo, who flipped a lot of illegal U-turns in Portland when we were there for the LIVESTRONG Challenge because she’s friends with the Osmonds (not a lie: I asked her once as a joke, to dare her to defy a Utah stereotype, but for real, one of her sons and one of Donny’s sons are BFFs), because of course she is . . . OK, maybe that’s not why she made a lot of U-turns. Listen, though: While post hoc ergo propter hoc is not my jam, what other explanation is there? We never did figure it out.

5:33 p.m. Just as I’m about to tear into the remnants of leftover baked potato, I remember that the last bit of co-worker Mark’s omiyage from Okinawa is in my purse! 紅芋ちんすこう to the rescue!

5:45 p.m. My fiscal admin, Lesley, who also lives in the hood and got maybe a 10-minute head start on me, texts to see whether I made it home OK. Nope, I reply. And I text her a photo from where I am, at the corner of Cooke and Pohukaina:

Lesley points out that it’d be faster for me to walk home.

“Yeah, but it’s hot out. And someone would steal my car.”

She has to laugh because it’s true. It has been about two-and-a-half hours.

5:48 p.m. Haven’t moved, except to cross the intersection. My mom, who can see me in Find My Friends, texts to ask if I’m going to leave work soon. You know, because I’d told her when she called me at 3 that I was on my way out, but it’s been about two-and-a-half hours now, and for reasons I can’t explain, I have moved all of 0.7 miles.

I finish The Nylon Curtain, which has a total playing time of 41 minutes, 57 seconds, before I reach the next intersection, Cooke and Halekauwila. [Total distance: 0.8 miles.] That is the other end of Mother Waldron park, pictured above, the reason I had to shift a block over from Coral Street. Next up: Billy’s first live album, Songs in the Attic (1981), which put some of his songs from Cold Spring Harbor (1971) into wider release for the first time (technical reasons) and highlighted his other early work for those who had become fans after The Stranger (1977).

Traffic finally starts to move at a decent enough pace that I don’t feel the need to keep looking for places to stash my car and head to higher ground on foot, which is good because . . . there is nowhere.

Finally . . .

6:19 p.m. I have at last reached the Promised Land, the Land of High-Enough Elevation: Thomas Square Park, on Ward Avenue, mauka of King Street. [Total distance: 1.4 miles.]

6:40 p.m. Yes, It would be another 21 minutes before I finally get home, but after all that, it seemed like 5. Pulled into the garage just as the next sirens apparently sounded — but not in Pālolo, ’cause our sirens went down months ago (and yes, we’ve reported it). I only know the sirens sounded again because this sounded on my phone:

Total driving distance: 6.4 miles.
Total time elapsed since walking out of the the UH Cancer Center: 3 hours, 22 minutes.

Before the sun sets completely, there is evidence of trademark tsunami behavior at the shorelines: Water receding a noticeable-enough distance from the shore off Hanalei. Even after sundown, you can see by the light of a streetlamp(ish) that the parking lot of Coconut Island in Hilo has flooded, and someone posts video of flooding at the old Hilo Seaside Hotel. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center reports that the Hilo gauge recorded a tsunami wave 4.9 feet relative to normal sea levels, and the gauge at Haleiwa, on the North Shore of O‘ahu, recorded a wave “well over a meter” high. To those who are not well-versed in disaster response, this seems fairly minor; however, it is important to remember that the craziest activity in a tsunami is what you don’t see, the turbulence churning in the water below the surface. When things get moving, they really move quickly.

I’ve removed drywall from and dug mud out from beneath the floor boards of houses in the Tōhoku region after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. No one could have predicted how far-reaching that tsunami would be: Honshu’s vast networks of rivers swept the surge of black, turbulent water far inland. Entire buildings were lifted from their foundations. People were swept out to sea. We got lucky here today, because the earthquake just off of Russia that triggered this tsunami activity was a big one, occurring in almost the exact same spot as another big one that took place just 10 days ago. The ocean floor doesn’t handle stuff like this particularly gracefully.

It isn’t until 10:45 p.m. that the Tsunami Warning was canceled and we were returned to a Tsunami Advisory status.

The all clear won’t come until morning.

But we’re fine.

Mahalo to everyone for their concern!

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