No. 47 of 108
July 30, 2025
Topline: Big earthquake; massive evacuation; localized coastal flooding; swimming and boating discouraged as riptides and other underwater disturbances expected to continue. An earthquake of 8.8 magnitude struck yesterday at 1:25pm Hawai‘i time, 82 miles off of the Pacific coast of Russia, at a depth of 46 miles. It was the largest earthquake in the Pacific since 2011, when the earthquake in Japan sent devastating on its own shores and damaging waves as far away as California. Hawai‘i has had over a hundred tsunamis since first catalogued in the early 1800s, of which nine have taken lives and fifteen have caused significant damage. A tsunami is a massive wave of energy that moves from its origin across the ocean. Clocked at about 550 miles per hour, this tsunami slowed to about 30 miles per hour in near-shore waters. Upon hitting an island land mass, waves of energy wrap around the island creating tidal impacts in all coastal areas. Over 100,000 evacuated from previously mapped inundation zones in about three hours, tens of thousands sent home early on gridlocked streets,, and thousands more, mostly tourists, were vertically evacuated, moved from the first three floors to higher floors. A network of pre-positioned buoys across the Pacific and in near-shore waters provide real-time data to scientists and modeling forecasters at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (threatened by federal cuts) who provide information to civil emergency leaders and personnel in Hawai‘i and jurisdictions rimming the Pacific. Their information activated the evacuation, as well as the all-clear-but-stay-out-of-the-water four hours after the first wave hit o/a 7:17pm Hawai‘i time.
Yes, it is possible. Arising in a sudden to common purpose, hundreds of thousands can move. A small number with the certainty of knowledge-based experience and constant drilling. Political leaders for whom this may be their first tsunami at the helm but not the first one in their life so don’t screw up. Tens of thousands navigating the stress of traffic and lines and locating all the loved ones. A hundred thousand or so moving upward or inland-ward, and waiting, and moving back once the all-clear is given. The many thousands who are always prepared with fourteen days of food in the pantry, batteries for the flashlights, Rx, and the thousands who said “OMG, when this is over I gotta go do the thing.” And yes, a few screw up, some lack aloha, some don’t listen and go to the shoreline to watch (which my sister calls “natural selection”), and as long as they are the few rather than the many we will make it through to the other side. The hundreds of thousands of decisions and actions and people taking care of each other because if we are to live on islands this is what we need to do. Don’t we all live on islands of one kind or another?