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chris mikesell / KA LAMAKUA Hale Noelani resident Johnathan Yang quickly hits Facebook to notify his friends about what was going on after hearing about the tsunami warning Thursday night. |
What immediately follows a tsunami warning, however, largely depends on where you are on the island. UH Manoa is, thankfully, not included in the state’s tsunami evacuation zones, and the official advice to those outside low lying coastal areas like Waikiki was to stay put and stay calm.
But students were far from oblivious to the situation, though one would be hard-pressed to call it panic.
Jonathan Yang, a sophomore majoring in Biology, first heard about the tsunami watch via a text message from his girlfriend.
“She said ‘There’s a tsunami watch. Go call your parents.’ I’m on Facebook and everybody is freaking out.”
Yang called his parents right away, but they said not to worry, that they were fine and on high ground. He was worried however, because what he and his roommates had on hand didn’t exactly qualify as a disaster kit.
“We always have water on hand, whether there’s a tsunami or not. We’re fine, I think.”
“You know, last year we had the ‘failnami.’ But even though nothing really happened last year, I think it was really kind of a wake-up call.”
Yang said that compared to the tsunami warnings people were getting a little more than a year ago from the Chile earthquake, these seemed pretty real.
“Last year, everyone was just kind of curious,” Yang said. “More curious than terrified about it.”
His roommate, a junior named David Morgan majoring in kinesiology, thought the authorities were doing a better job of communicating to the public this time around compared to what happened during last year’s tsunami watch.
He even had a special name for that one.
“You know, last year we had the ‘failnami,’” Morgan said. “But even though nothing really happened last year, I think it was really kind of a wake-up call.”
Yang, however, admitted that he wasn’t taking the tsunami threat too seriously.
He pointed to his TV – he had been keeping a close eye on the situation, but his bigscreen wasn’t on live shots of Japanese beaches or Hawaii coastlines.
“As you can see, I’m watching Jersey Shore,” Yang laughed.
“I mean, we’ve seen the news, we’ve seen the magnitude, the damage and things like that. But if it comes, we’re pretty safe. Most people are using it as an excuse to party. They’re hoping for no school.”
“No damage and no school,” Morgan added. “No midterms.”
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chris mikesell / KA LAMAKUA "Kai," (center) about to set off on her bike to go for a Longs' run for liquid refreshment, says that going on an alcohol run during a tsunami watch is "just another adventure." |
One student, who went by “Kai,” was with two of her male companions preparing to go on a quick Longs’ run for beverages.
Kai said that her shopping list, however, was unlikely to stop at bottled water.
“We were discussing perhaps going to the grocery store, mayb’s. We’re going to go pick up some supplies. A couple things. Some alcohol.”
I asked again to make sure.
“Heck yeah! Why not?” she said. These were the students Morgan was describing – a group firmly resolved not to let a good crisis go to waste.
But a tsunami party wasn’t the only thing on Kai’s mind as she mounted her pink bicycle.
“I gotta get to my cell phone and call my little sister,” said Kai. “She works in Waikiki, usually until 4:00 a.m. I don’t think she’s working tonight. I hope not.
“An 8.9 is a huge freaking earthquake. That’s pretty severe, I think. We’re pretty darn close.”
Other dormers found themselves caught off guard when they tried to buy food at Hale Noelani’s Corner Market Café.
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chris mikesell / KA LAMAKUA Jarrette Nolope, left, explains to Casandra Sied, far right, that though the signs on the door say the Market will be closing at 11:00 p.m. management has decided to close up shop early. Nolope said that Sodexho reportedly closed its other campus concessions early Thursday night in a similar manner. |
“We’re closing right now,” Nolope said. “We’re supposed to be closing at 11:00 p.m. but certain other branches on campus have started closing early. They’re sending people home. So they called us and said ‘Ok, you know what? Every place is closing. You close up too.’”
Nolope said that while he didn’t hear the sirens personally, he got wind of it from students who came in to shop.
“The entire island is on alert right now. Stadium lights just went out, sirens have been going on. That’s what’s been going on.”
Nolope had to stop for a moment every few seconds while he was explaining to turn away another student looking at the taped signs and their watches in disbelief.
"They’re sending people home. So they called us and said ‘Ok, you know what? Every place is closing. You close up too.’”
His bosses were expecting the worst. Nolope said that he remembered an earthquake a few years ago where Sodexho took similar precautions to the ones they are taking now.
“There was a full scale blackout,” Nolope said. “Like, half the entire campus was shut down. I was actually working in the cafeteria at the time and we literally lost power. I was in the dishroom, everything went black, and we had to leave.
“They are expecting something possibly similar to that,” he said. “That’s probably why we’re shutting down early.”
I managed to catch him as he was locking the front door, but many weren’t so lucky.
“Water! We need water, we don’t have any water.”
“Closing. We’re closing.” Nolope repeated this to about a dozen students in the five minutes it took to interview him.
“We don’t have any bottled water,” repeated one of the latecomers – Casandra Sied, a graduate student majoring in sociology. “None of our roommates have any bottled water tonight. We don’t have any water for ourselves.”
“You don’t have running water?” Nolope asked.
“In case they cut off the water,” Sied said.
“Any bottles, any hollow bottles, fill those up.”
“I’ve only got 22 ounces. That’s it.”
I suggested that she try 7-11, but she wouldn’t have any of it.
“I’m not walking that far,” said Sied. “What am I supposed to do? Every time I walk down there there’s some bum who harasses me.”
Sied told me that compounding the feeling that the trip wasn’t safe was the fact that calling for help was becoming very difficult.
“Our phones don’t even work,” Sied told me. “I had to use Skype to call my mom. I had credit on my Skype card.”
But it seemed like the news had not yet reached her mother in California.
“I called her up and she was like, ‘What tsunami? What earthquake?’” Sied said.
“She goes, ‘I had no idea that was happening.’”
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