Our Hawaiian Ohana

I know we're all concerned for our people in Hawaii, so I wanted to express my concern for you all and give you a place to post to let us know how you're doing, and if there's anything we can do for ya...

I'm hoping all is well with each of you.

I spoke with filslash on the phone. He is fine, but has no power for now. He said "it shook pretty good" but he has no damage. Of course, the first thing he did was grab his favorite mug from the shelf and held on.

[ Edited by: JenTiki 2006-10-15 13:33 ]

Power is back on in Kihei. I had many mugs fall from the shelves, but other than a chip on my Orchids of Hawaii red Clay Moai, I don't think there weren't any casualties.

Just a lot of people shaken up.

Here is what happened in Kaneohe: We rocked and rolled pretty good, but no damage. Every picture in the house is crooked and several things fell from shelves and tipped over in the china cabinets. We had no power until around midnight. We put everything into the one refrigerator and ran the generator for a few hours at a time a couple times yesterday. And made a game out of eating what was melting the fastest. Ice cream for dinner!

We haven't herd from Gecko, but Eva got power back around dinner time. We were told to please stay off both the cell and land lines yesterday, so we did.

My 16 year old Forrest was scared silly. I was awake when it struck, watching my big black and white cat, Figaro, who was up on the dresser acting weird. She was frozen between sitting and standing, with her ears cocked back. I guess she heard it before we did! I ran downstairs when the one minute rumble built up to the severe shakes. Poor Forrest came running out of his room and he was shaking like a leaf. It sorta tossed him out of bed! And our pool had huge waves in it! We felt the second earthquake, but not the third one. The radio station in Honolulu counted over 40 aftershocks, I guess you can feel it better in a high rise!

The phone lines were working, just most of us have phones that require power to work. I have two boys with bad asthma, so I always have a old princess style phone connected to use in emergencies. The cell towers weren't all working, I was in roam all day yesterday.

Sorry, I proved I'm a mom first, tiki lover second, because the small collection I have was the 3rd thing I checked on! I ran into my second son in the kitchen as he was running to our bedroom. Then I ran out to our guest house behind our house to see if our 21 year old son and his fiancee were okay. They were.

We were waiting for part of that mountain we live snugged up to to rain down on us! Or the huge water tank directly behind our house to crack....

All is well! Aloha!!!

I'm very glad to hear the reports that everyone so far is okay. 6.3 sure is a bugger of an earthquake!

The final word was it was 6.6 on the richter scale, with a 5.9 aftershock, just a minute later.

Funny I hear everyone on Oahu describing the rolling motion, or rocking back and forth.

Where I was (much closer to the epicenter) it didn't roll at all it was definately a violent shaking, as I said, most my mugs rotated themselves 45 to 90 degrees counterclockwise.

Try putting a mug on your kitchen table and see what it takes to get it to rotate 90 degrees!

All is well over here - Kailua just got cable back up, so I can finally check the internet to find out news! Our house really shook - it is an old post and pier home - so the rocking and rolling was rather dramatic. Ms. VanTiki and I ran to a door frame, and when the rocking and rumble got worse, we grabbed the dogs and sprinted outside. I heard things falling off of shelves in the house and at our neighbors - but thankfully my mugs stayed put (they are kinda hefty) :)

The strangest thing for me was the complete breakdown in communication - I immediately turned on my computer to check for tsunamis, and the power went out. We all jumped in the car to listen to the radio and there was nothing! Half the local stations were down, and the rest were singing along like nothing happened. It wasn't till 7:30 that we learned the magnitude of the quake and that there was no tsunami warning (which we kinda figured since it would have hit Oahu in a matter of minutes). The first official civil defense bulletin didn't hit the airwaves until a bit after 10am! A very bizarre Sunday to say the least!

VanTiki

Does anyone think that how you felt the earthquake depends on where you live? I am on a mountainside and felt small shaking building up to the violent sideways shaking.... I've heard a lot of different descriptions so far.

The last earthquake here, about a month ago was a rumble that was like a bubble ran under me. My chair rose up and back down like an elevator! Darndest thing...

So all day after the earthquake I had a terrible earworm: "Shook Me All Night Long" 'cause the walls were shakin', the earth was quakin' ....

Aloha!

So Kona has a earth quake, that my friends living there describe as a "California Quake" - just before I move from LA to Kona! Let's hope the volcano has gotten all that "California" shaking out of her system for a while!