Pair A Dice

Pair A Dice was Originally Posted on October 16, 2006 by lavarock

When you move to Paradise, you take the good with the bad.

Tourists only see the side of things as people wait on them. Life is rosy and they have little thought about what goes on behind the scenes.

In Hawaii we are blessed with (mostly) lush green tropical plants. Nearby that lushness on my island is black rock, recent lava from the volcano. The Big Island is a mixture of contrasts. The green plants are fed on rains; sometimes torrential rains which we get. We are blessed with beautifully tropical weather at sea level. Still, it is possible to get frostbite or be caught in a blizzard just 45 miles inland. How? Well there is this giant mountain in out backyard that rises from the ocean to 14,000 feet in a mere 45 miles. The top of which has many observatories and the occasional snow cover.

The mountains (Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa) also extend another 14,000 feet or so down to the ocean floor. That is a lot of rock. Imagine a cone of rock 28,000 feet tall. It all came from volcanic action, hot rock oozing out of a fissure in the ocean floor and slowly building up this chain of islands. Some islands barely extend above the water.

So this “Big Island” called Hawaii is a gigantic pile of rock, all pushing downward. It is not unusual for it to settle a bit; sometimes violently! It did that at 7:07 (or so) today. The “or so” is because the clock fell off the fall.

Living on the mainland all my life, I had only once been through a quake and it was nothing. Here on Hawaii I have been through many quakes in the 3.0 or more range, but they lasted only a few seconds and were kind of fun to talk about. That was about to change.

I had been up late Saturday night because I was working on financial reports and QuickBooks. I awoke from a sound sleep to a rolling that I knew was an earthquake. Other quakes would shake a bit and were done but this one was different. It seemed to be increasing in intensity. In fact, it was so strong that I decided to get out of bed and leave the house, even thought I was not fully dressed. It was a wise decision. I grabbed the cell phone and headed out.

I could tell this was a big quake and was scared and did not pass this off as a “fun” one. My house sits on posts and it sways just a bit in heavy wind. This was different because cabinets were opening; things were dropping on the floor. The event lasted perhaps 20 seconds or more; I don’t know. It is hard to gauge that but it seemed to go on forever.

My first thought was to get on the phone to friends and neighbors, especially to see if they were all right. We laughed a bit but you could hear the trembling in all of our voices. We knew this was big and I wanted to get more information. I came inside and found I still had Internet. I tried to get to the Earthquake reporting site, but it was slow to at a dead stop. Then the Internet and phone went out. Cell phone calls were blocked, as I believe visitors began making calls home to the mainland.

About 7 minutes after the 6.6 quake was an aftershock or another quake, this one just a mere 5.8! I again left the house in haste! I called a friend in Florida who was able to pass information back to me about the quakes. Our local radio stations were off the air because they lost power. Then my power went off.

I received a couple of phone calls, one from the mainland and another from a friend on the island. We chatted for a few minutes and I began checking for structural problems around the house. I saw no damage that has not been here since I bought the house, but I will take a better look over the next day or so.

I heard that you could see a cloud of dust from Kealakekua Bay. It appears some of the cliff collapsed and rocks rolled down into the ocean. Coast Guard helicopters appeared to look for injuries (perhaps in the Bay which is a popular snorkeling area near the Captain Cook Monument).

I decided to drive into Kona. If anyone needed help I had a 4-wheel drive vehicle. As I went I noticed there was little traffic. It was Sunday morning, a normally slow time for traffic but it could also be due to rocks blocking the main road. We often have small rockslides that close roads for short periods. Rockslides are common. I passed a hitchhiker and gave him a ride. He was on his way into Kona because he had nothing to do at home. Having been on the island just 9 months, he thought the quake a pretty neat. Hmmmm J

Along the 20-minute drive I saw no major damage, but I did see many rock walls had collapsed. Where the road was cut through rock, oftentimes there were rocks strewn around, some of the quite large. You have to be careful driving as you might round a corner and see rocks in the road. If possible, local motorists stop and move them out of the way.

Kona town had spotty power; some places lit and others dark. Many stores were closed and most would not open for business.

I dropped my passenger off at the far end of Kona and headed down to visit friends. One friend is a resident manager for a condo. He had structural damage and a broken air conditioner cooling line. I drove him to Lowe’s to get batteries and a bulb for his flashlight. We passed Wal-Mart and noticed they had blocked the entrance to the parking lot with shopping carts. I hear they lost part of their roof. Lowe’s looked like they were running on emergency power, had all but one door closed and there appeared to be a lone guy checking out what few customers were there. We all chatted about the quakes and he continued to check us out, while showing our standard Aloha.

I dropped off my friend and continued on to the next set of condos. There they had a few problems but less structural damage. There was an elevator broken and that caused problems later for a man in a wheel chair and the maids who needed to get their carts up to clean rooms. The Manager also told me that he needs to replace 4 to 6 TV’s which walked off of the tables and cracked open on the tile floors. A few sliding doors were off their rollers and glassware littered some kitchens.

CNN was using a feed from KITV television in Honolulu and I was able to see photos from this and other islands. There was no looting and people casually waited in line outside waiting for a few stores to open. Many of them related where they were and what damage they had.

Many islands had lost power and I began to understand how powerful these quakes were. During previous level 3 quakes on my island, you rarely hear that people on the other islands felt it. A level 6 quake is many times more powerful than a 3.

You probably have heard more information about the quakes that I did but please keep this in mind. Hawaii and the other islands did NOT drop into the ocean, the volcano did NOT blow its top and there appear to be no casualties! Information is always speculative during the first few hours of a disaster (and this has been classified as a disaster; probably so we can get Federal Aid and use the local military to help us).

The Governor was in town and in fact was right near the epicenter of one of the quakes. She had arrived last night and was scheduled to be in a political forum this afternoon. It was cancelled primarily because of the quake but also because many of the radio stations, which would carry the thing, were off the air. Most people still stayed home as per the Civil Defense request.

A hospital needed to be evacuated and damage was significant. Some people were airlifted to other hospitals. Some roads were impassable and lots of people had frayed nerves. Many people lost power for minutes to hours and 100,000 people on Oahu still are without power 15 hours later. Thousands of frustrated visitors were stuck in airports as many flights were cancelled. Those flights should be resumed in the morning.

I have to say that for an emergency like this, we handled it well and we were lucky. There was little major damage. I saw no houses flattened although there may be lots of hidden problems. Many of the buildings will need to be inspected. Some visitors had a horrible vacation and yet life goes on. Surfers were out surfing, Ironman participants were running and cycling in preparation for the upcoming race. In hindsight, the race was originally scheduled for yesterday had already been rescheduled a year ago. Had this race been scheduled for today, I can guarantee that it would have been stopped in mid race!

We did our best to show aloha in the face of disaster. It was a disaster, but if you have to have a disaster, Paradise is the best place to have one! J

And life goes on!