An earthquake, measured at magnitude 8.8 (Richter), was registered around 11:30am local time on Wednesday, approximately 136km southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, according to the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Warning sirens in Hawai’i were blaring by mid-afternoon.
The bus ride back to Waikiki commencing at 3:30 pm was a 1.5 hour trip. During that time, a conversation with a young Asian hottie was initiated by the latter. She asked about the evacuation procedures, if any, and past experiences with tsunami events. She was advised to contact the hotel staff for their protocol. After a phone conversation with one of the staff, she said that hotel guests will be allowed to remain in the hotel. No hotel evacuation notice had been dispatched as of 4pm.
The streets of Waikiki were completely congested. All of the stores and restaurants closed early. So, employees, along with evacuees, were leaving en masse. Tourists were dashing about looking for places to eat or purchase food. A couple of places were actually still open, and lines of tourists were extremely long.
 |
| Evacuation 6:20pm - Ala Wai Boulevard |
There was no motivation to evacuate the “old folks home,” even though the property sits in the so-called “extreme evacuation zone.” Apparently, that was also the consensus amongst most of the other senior citizen tenants and the residents of the adjacent high-rise condominiums.
At 7:20pm, lots of yelling, cheering, and screaming erupted from all of the hotels in Waikiki as the impatient tourists awaited the tsunami. Fortunately, that bullshit lasted all of 15 minutes, no doubt because the tsunami did not arrive.
The Tsunami ETA was estimated to be 7:17 HST. At 9pm, Waikiki remained a ghost town. Stores and restaurants were all closed. Tourists were all sequestered in their hotels. The Ala Wai Canal was not flooding the area, although the buffoonish governor was claiming that the “big one” was still coming. The official “all clear” won’t be announced until the wee hours of tomorrow morning. Notes is calling the tsunami a “no show.” Ho hum.