We've been alerted to a potential tsunami that will hit at 2:59 AM HST. It's predicted to be two meters tall.

Hey Mike, will the kids be out selling ice cream again this year? Looks like we will have to move upland in Kiehi. let's hope it is a false alarm.

At 3 AM it'll probably be coffee.

I'm just watching the live images from Japan on CNN, 100ft fishing boats just floating through the streets.

Our streets are already jammed with tourists from the beach hotels. It's gonna be a long night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k4w27IczOTk

The power of natures forces.

Check out this video. It's amazing the huge buildings and cars are flowing along as if they were just plastic toys.

Mike, how are things? Anything substantial in Hawaii?

our news reckons that you didn't get it too badly. Hope so.

Stay safe

I was amazed at the two bimbos on NBC morning news (Meredith & Ann?) who seemed to think Honolulu was on the Big Island and referred to it as the Hawaiian mainland. They referred to the others as "outlying islands" but didn't seem to think they were populated. They even used those terms when talking to people in Honolulu by phone.

Just got back from checking on my boat and the club Olson 30. Lahaina harbor is pretty screwed. About 50% of the dock planks are gone. Most of the boats left the harbor and either anchored out or tied up to a mooring ball. A few dingies left behind either sunk or rolled over.

The harbor is still getting pumped. The water level rises and falls about six feet every ten minutes. It's an E ticket ride.

Other than that Lahaina came through relatively free of damage.



These are the commercial docks. They're normally loaded with boats taking tourists out on whale watches, snorkel trips, etc.


The surge raised the water about two feet above the dock. The boat pictured floated over the top of the dock and sat on it when the water receded.

Here's one of the Darwin award winners:

The Coast Guard is searching for a man who was swept out to sea while taking photos of waves with two friends near the mouth of the Klamath River in Del Norte County, Calif. His friends made it back to shore, and helicopters are searching for the missing man.

no kidding? the report I saw was that Hawaii only saw 1' waves...though I haven't been in touch lately.

Checked the beach and boat ramp at Kiehi. All normal. No sign of damage.

A better question is why would you even watch that network to begin with??

The waves may have been one foot but the pumping surge in Lahaina was at least four feet.

I was flipping between all available news reports. Usually the truth lies somewhere between all the media sources, each with their own inaccuracies and sensationalism.

Having family on Kauai, I was glad when NBC managed to actually speak with the County of Kauai's Director of Communications about the situation there, while everyone else was talking mostly to folks in Honolulu.

fair enough

I saw an MIT professor (nuclear technology specialist) repeatedly correct and advise a CNN newscaster to quit referring to the Japanese nuclear plant with anything referencing Chernobyl. At worst, its potentially a 3 mile island type of situation and probably not quite that significant.

I'm glad you pointed that out Jake. I've worked in two different Nuclear Power plants here in the US and know quite a bit about the safety systems involved. It disgusts me to see the media do what they do in demonizing Nuclear Power. First off, Chernobyl had no containment building that was anything more substantial than a Tuff Shed. Three Mile Island had a partial core melt down but the other safety stops did exactly what they were engineered to do. The one in Japan has a containment structure similar to what is required in the us.

+1

The Fukushima reactor that's in trouble is an older design than Three Mile Island, and lacks the concrete containment dome that TMI and other more modern reactors have.