Saturday 27 February 2010

Time for a shower

The local news networks are going nuts with the news of the approaching tsunami and there's so much disinformation or complete ignorance that it's making my blood boil. The latest is that there will be a twelve foot-wave and given this is the home of surfers all that'll do is encourage the local surfers to go out and surf the tsunami.

Don't do it. You'll die. A tsunami is not a wave - at least not the way you think of a wave.

It's about 30 minutes before the warning sirens go off, they're due to start at 6am. I wont hear them because the nearest one is miles away but that doesn't matter. My car is fueled, I've packed enough gear to live for a few days and the cats are in easy reach - at least for now. Soon after that I expect civil defense and the police to come by asking us to evacuate. So I'm taking a shower now!

The first waves won't get here for quite a few hours and I really hope that I'll be back here on Sunday moaning about the warnings. In any case, the first wave should be here at 11:19 am HST or about 9:20pm UK time.

4 comments:

Hilary said...

Sending my best thoughts your way. Keep safe, Tom.

Tom said...

Always knew this would happen one day but it's still a shock when it does actually happen!

Apparently the National Guard have been activated (sic - according to the mayor)).

Just did a round of the neighbours. They're very awake!

Tom

JestrBob said...

Spent the time from about 9:00AM HST to now watching the various web cams and TV, including Hilo and watching Coconut Island. It seem like you all got lucky again and the worst was a 3 foot or so wave, unless I missed something.

So far so good. Niece's Ex-Husband and her kids live in Hilo. So we have an interest, too.

Tom said...

Yes, Bob, we definitely got lucky this time. I think in the end this was an excellent exercise and civil defense and the police did a superb job. Even if the waves turned out to be much larger and destructive I think the loss of life would have been minimal.

Good job Hawai`i!

Tom