Run for the Hills!

A lot of things have happened this semester. A lot.
I'm the RS Pres in our ward,
went on a couple field trips with my sixth graders around the island (so fun),
we held the Neon Riot (a giant glow in the dark, black light, dance party and our house),
I did the Music Man here,

(awesome right?!)
throw in some big surf and a little Hale'iwa Eats action and that was pretty much my semester thus far...

UNTIL SATURDAY

On Saturday, plate tectonics moved and the earth shook and the pacific held its breath. Then our worst nightmares came true. We received a phone call at 5am telling us that a tsunami was headed our way. A 500 mile an hour wall of water was barreling towards our little island. Our house is directly across the street from the beach. We can see the ocean from our couch. Even more terrifying still, our house is held up on rotten wooden stilts. If a wave of water, no matter how small, hit our house it would fall to the ground! We had to evacuate. We quickly bolted out of bed and began packing our bags. How do you pack your life into a back pack? We didn't know but we were grateful we could take even that small amount. After my possessions were secured I quickly began calling our off campus sisters. Had they heard the news? Did they know where safety was? When it boiled down to it, there was only so much packing and planning we could do. It soon became a waiting game. A wave, if one were to hit, would not come until 11am... And so we waited, and waited, and waited.


(Our "I'm so pissed that it's only 9:30 and I've already been away for like 5 hours" face)

At 9:30 we drove the mile to the school and parked our truck. Hopefully we were far enough inland... We decided we weren't going to wait around to find out. We figured we were safe. We were a mile from the shore, but we wanted to see it come. We decided we would hike to the top of the little mountain behind the school. So we set off into the jungle. At first there was an absolutely beautiful dirt road that we got to walk along, but soon we had to walk through the school farms and into the jungle. It was so lush, green and peaceful. I couldn't believe that in a matter of minutes my house could be washed away. We hiked across a dry riverbed and past some banyan trees to another dirt road. This one ran up into the hills behind local property. The dirt on these roads was a deep red. The farther up the hills the redder it became. Soon our flip flop clad feet matched the cracked earth.



Eventually the road ended and we had to crawl under a barbed wire fence into the Koa Wood forest. So epic. There was no trail, just trees and a soft bed of fallen needles. We made our way strait up the mountainside until we hit the first summit. There a dirt path crawled a way eventually turning back up the mountainside. We followed it, clawing at exposed tree roots for stability. Finally the top came. We could see all the way out to the ocean. How perfect is that for an impending tsunami?! As we hiked we were receiving updates from the mainland. Nothing had hit the big island yet. When the tsunami finally made it our way we would see it break on the shores down below. So we sat. And waited. And waited. There was a tree house at the end of our hike. Some climbed up and fell asleep, others of us wandered off on the phone. Was the warning a false alarm? They had pushed back the wave's arrival time... We were not going to be hit by a frightening natural disaster. But then, the first wave hits Hilo! It's a whopping 3 inches.



We were all very grateful that something damaged hadn't headed our way. We were grateful for our safety, that our house was still standing and that no one here had been hurt. However... To be a little bit honest... It was kind of disappointing that nothing happened. I mean, there was SOOO much anticipation. We'd been awake for like 7 hours waiting for something to happen. I don't want anyone to be displaced, or worse, injured or killed, but I hiked up a mountain to see a wave hit an island. Couldn't a little one have hit?!



Oh well. It was an exciting adventure. And now that I'm all caught up with this bad boy and have had something exciting enough to motivate me to write I'll hopefully update this more often.