Grateful we were spared from the tsunami

We are so lucky we were spared what was expected to be a bad tsunami. The warning on the news we received here was that Haleiwa was going to be the worst hit. I expected the water to at least reach our house, which is across the street and 2 houses down from the beach in Haleiwa. So when the water only came up past the bushes on the beach, we were so grateful, yet at the same time, feeling so sorrowful for the people in Japan. Wow.

I've had a few family members ask me if we were afraid and what we did. I think like anyone I was stricken with fearful amazement when we saw the wave coming into Japan, but much more aware knowing a tsunami was headed our way, and they were saying that our area was going to be the hardest hit. Panicky? No. We had plenty of time to prepare and evacuate. Our good friends on a hill took us in for the night. Our girls weren't really afraid either because last year we evacuated as well and nothing happened.

We have also had people ask what a tsunami wave is like. The girls and I went across the street to the beach the morning after to watch the water come in and out, so I thought I'd post the photos and videos we took that morning. Of course, this is a small tsunami, perhaps only 1 -1.5 feet when we were at the beach, but you can still see the pull and push of the ocean as the reef goes bare, then the water comes in as small waves.

Tsunami waves are not like surfing waves. It's more like a wall of water with an amazing current, pushing or pulling anything in its way, so being at the beach during a tsunami warning is pretty dang stupid. We were there after.

The water would recede for about 7 minutes, then the water would rush in for about the same amount of time.

Water receeding from the reef. It became more bare after this photo.

Photo at the same spot 5 minutes later with water rushing in. It took less than 1 minute to cover the rock in the last photo.

My neighbor and I were talking about the tsunami while I videotaped the water receeding. This was at the beginning of the recession, so it got a bit lower than this. Do you see the water line on the beach, where there are not a lot of footsteps? That's how far the water would reach when it came in.

This short video shows how quickly the water was being pulled back to the ocean. Imagine this pull with a larger tidal wave, and you can see how easy it would be to be sucked into the ocean.

Water coming in. Watch the reef get covered up.

Watch the water and you can see how quickly it is coming in. Again, you can imagine this on a bigger scale and think of the effect it can have (or just watch the footage from Japan)

On the way home we swung on a branch of a palm tree. What would we have been doing if the tsunami had hit hard?