Yesterday the 15yo and I went on our Discovery Dive. We got into the water at 2:00 in Lahaina. When we got back to the dive shop at 3:30pm, our phones were blowing up with Emergency Alerts and text messages about the tsunami warning.
The traffic out of Lahaina, on the north west side of the island, was bad. It took us twice as long to drive home as it had to drive up.
When we got to the house everyone was gone, except the husband and the 11yo, who were waiting for us with all our stuff packed. We threw all our luggage, and some food, in the car and left for higher ground.
At 5:20 pm, we met our friends at a distillery/restaurant on a hill in the middle of the island. We were not the only people who had chosen the spot to wait out the tsunami warning. Honestly, it was kind of an idyllic space. We ordered some food and hunkered down for what we knew would be a long wait.
By 7:00pm, most people were standing at the edge of the clearing, looking down at the water on either side of the isthmus, wondering if the waves would be visible.
The Emergency Alerts we were all getting every hour, and then every half hour, said the waves were expected to hit at 7:10pm. That time came and went without any updates. By 8:30pm it was clear that we weren’t going to have definitive information anytime soon.
The distillery closed at 7pm, but they let people stay until 9pm if they didn’t have anywhere else to go. At that point we still didn’t feel safe going back to the house, so we drove to the Safeway parking lot in the middle of the island.
By 10:39pm, after watching the local news on our phones and monitoring buoy measurements, we felt reasonably sure we could head back to the property. We had to unpack all our stuff again, and get the kids into bed.
The adults stayed up past midnight, until the emergency was officially downgraded. Then we headed to bed.
And that is how we managed the tsunami warning on Maui yesterday.
More updates on our trip, and some other stuff, soon.
Nothing like a tsunami warning to add a little “excitement” to your trip! Glad y’all played it safe and I hope the rest of your trip goes as originally anticipated!
Ack! I knew there was a tsunami warning, and I knew you were in Hawaii- but I didn’t connect the two things. Well- glad everything is okay. Kind of a bummer to have your vacation interrupted though!
Thank you. Not a tiny thing and glad you were sensible and careful. SO much better for it to have been ok than what we’ve seen happen in other places.
Nice to see pictures and I loved the kitty!
Wow, not the adventure you expected! I’m glad everything was OK. I hope you’re enjoying your trip! We went to Maui in 2021, and it is a lovely island for sure.
You sound like you were so calm!!! (I would have . . . not done well with this – I HATE WEATHER EMERGENCIES SO MUCH). I’m so glad it went okay, and I hope everyone was safe and not too much damage across the island!