First Post, Earthquake Experience

While sleeping yesterday morning, I dreamt I was in a large parking lot with many vehicles rumbling on the level above. The vibrations sure seemed to be strong. There was a pause, then a second round of vehicles seemed to come through. Thus ended my dream, and I awoke uncomfortably, thinking "was that an earthquake?" even though I've never felt an earthquake before. I used the bathroom and ran back to bed. I had to force myself to note the time from a cell phone--7:11am. The power went off, and on, and off, a few minutes later. Feeling more energized and less determined to sleep through everything, I helped my Mom fill containers with water and learned she was in the kitchen and had seen our hanging mugs jingle against each other.

We learned the batteries in our two radios were only to maintain correct time on the clock portion, and would not operate the radio or CD portions. We got news via landline telephone from a Kauai relative and a Honolulu friend who got his news via landline telephone from his sister in Seattle and her television. Through these means, we learned the earthquake was worse on the big island. My Mom called her friend there and left a message. Later, the friend called back. She was okay, but had to clean up lots of glass. She mentioned cast iron pots being thrown out of cabinets, books falling of shelves, and pictures falling down. Her brother was on a UA ORD-KOA flight and the flight was sent back to ORD. She was taking care of his dog, and cleaned up lots of glass at his home as well. At this point, I noticed my two carved stone Korean footsoldier bookends had toppled over, but remained on the shelf. My books definitely did not come off their shelves. This illustrates different experiences for Kona and Honolulu dwellers. Also, her power only went off for a short while as she was able to call us on a cordless phone in the early afternoon, while our power was off for about 16 hours.

Around 2pm, I went to Ala Moana Beach Park and had a good swim. At the reef, I suddenly thought perhaps this earthquake could have caused a tsunami. I calmed down because the lifeguards were there and hadn't kept people from going in the water. I tried to look toward the horizon to see if the water was pulling back, which I thought I had read was a sign of an impending big wave. Everything looked fine, but I decided to go back in anyway. I walked around magic island and observed two dead pigeons, some crabs, and the waves, before leaving. There was a large gathering in the park portion with music and tents. I am not sure which group it was, but they seemed to be from some Polynesian or Micronesian group, and I apologize that I do not know.

Our power came back on around 1130pm. Later, at 1250am Tuesday, I drove to Waikiki and noticed the Royal Iolani, Iolani Court Plaza, Terrace Towers, and other buildings along Date St. remained without power. I strolled through Waikiki on a cell phone congratulating and chatting with a friend who is starting a new job today in New York. Police cars pulled up to the Moana Surfrider and officers ran quickly to restrain a husky man. He started crying and wailing distressfully. The breeze was wonderful and power was on for the stretch of Kalakaua I walked. At 2am when I drove back, the buildings I mentioned above were still without power.

I am trying to report these things because I'm intrigued about things like google spreadsheet, blogs, people reporting the news, etc. is really "unleashing" all of this stuff. For example, my cable is still not working. When I go to status.oceanic.com, the site is down and I got confused in the first place by going to their internet network status page, and not their cable television status homepage. I thought to myself it would be great if someone else mentioned their cable was working or not in their blog, because that would give me more information than oceanic! So, now that my power is on, I am motivated to write this first post.

Busses seemed to be working fine all day. Streetlights and stoplights were not.