Have you seen the pictures and footage from Japan? Awful. Horrible. Makes me want to tell everyone I know how thankful I am to have them in my life. You know, just in case I happen to be in an area that experiences a huge earthquake followed by a devastating tsunami. Which I am not, mind you. But there was a period of about 8 hours last night when I wasn't sure about that. Watching footage of a wall of water approaching Japan's coast, watching footage of boats lying on their sides and bridges under water and people waving white flags from the top floors of their newly underwater homes, and then being told that a tsunami warning was in effect for the Hawai'ian islands, and that the first island to be hit would be Kaua'i, and that the wave would make landfall at 3:07AM HST, well, you can imagine me wanting to tell all the people in my life just how thankful I am to call them my friends and my family. That means YOU!
Granted, my tsunami story ends, thankfully, with little more hassle than being evacuated from our complex of 3 beach houses to a 6-bedroom mansion in the hills. My tsunami story ends, happily, with little more destruction than beach debris littering the lawn of our beach house, which the landscaping crew is currently in the process of cleaning up. In other words, my tsunami story is a ridiculous case of moving from luxury to luxury and having other people deal with whatever headaches may have arisen. My tsunami story is almost embarrassing when looking at the footage of the heartbreaking situation in Japan. My tsunami story is 13 people on vacation who are now all laughing about how poor the TV news coverage of the "event" was. After all, this happened in the middle of the night, so even when there was something to be seen--the water receding about 150 yards from shore multiple times and then coming in strong like a fast-rushing tide--we couldn't see anything on TV and had only the newscasters to tell us what it might look like, should it actually be visible to anyone. To be fair, though, it was frightening to consider the "what-ifs" of a tsunami wall-of-water reaching us, here in our houses-on-stilts 100 yards from the ocean. At first, it all seemed like a bunch of hype and hysteria. I mean, a TSUNAMI? No way!! But then that footage started showing up on TV, and then the alert sirens began blaring, and then the property manager called to tell us to pack all of our things, including food and bottles of water, and to be ready to move once she found a place for us on higher ground. When do you ever expect to get THAT call? It was too surreal to be believed, and then it became horrifically believable. So we packed. And we sent emails or made phone calls to our loved ones on the mainland to let them know not to worry, we'll be safe no matter what, but we may not have electricity or running water or phone/internet service come landfall. There were talks of the airport, which sits at sea level, taking on major damage, perhaps stranding us here for some time. The "what-ifs" coupled with the footage in Japan, all of it being dissected and processed by 13 near-strangers at different degrees of "Holy crap we need to go!" or "Holy crap we need some surf boards!", some of whom had been drinking since breakfast, all of whom had to work as a team to get ourselves taken care of, it was comically chaotic and funnily frightening. But we managed to stay calm enough to get ourselves together and head out to our "shelter" (it makes the story much more dramatic if we spent the night in a "shelter" rather than a mansion, don't you think?) and then stayed glued to the news until about 90 minutes after landfall, when it seemed clear that the destruction would be minimal on our island and there was nothing more to do but get a few hours sleep. Which we did, and then once the restrictions were lifted at 8AM and we were able to make our way back to the beach houses, we all piled into our caravan and arrived to find the property manager and her groundskeeping crew of 5 already at work on cleaning up the debris. Our houses had no damage (though the house 2 doors down, which was almost rented by us, did lose their outdoor staircase). Our beach is still beautiful. And the airport is once again up and running.
Now it's time to take a siesta on the lanai to recover from my harrowing night in the shelter. (I have a hard time even writing that joking comment without feeling guilty about Japan.) In all seriousness, my tsunami non-story is made up of moments of pause, where I couldn't help but feel fortunate for the new friends I am here with and the family and friends I have scattered about the mainland, moments of appreciating how fickle fate can be, how everything can change in a flash and what is paradise today can be a disaster-zone tomorrow. I have a story to tell, while others have lost loved ones and homes and businesses. My story is nothing more than a story, and I'm thankful to be able to share it with you.
Now, go hug or call your loved ones! And send Japan all the goodness you can send, whatever that means to you.
Aloha!
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