Waiting for the Tsunami

HONOLULU -- Friday had been this kind of a day in aloha-land: Airlines announced they would offer more "post-recession" flights to Hawaii, house prices were rising -- median $597,000 -- in Honolulu; and then there was news of the death of Kermit Tyler, the Army Air Force first lieutenant on radar duty in Hawaii who dismissed the reports of an unusually large blip of fast approaching aircraft on the morning of December 7, 1941 with the infamous line, "Don't worry about it."

On Waikiki Beach, as that relentless sun slid into the Pacific, a middle aged, "just married" couple-- he in black tie and she in a cream satin dress -- slow-danced to a quartet of beach boys in surfer shorts and flip flops that had stopped its hula-oke contest to honor this gatecrash of hope over... whatever. It was, as they say here, aloha: the essence of life. All good.

Then, at dawn on Saturday, it was all not so good. We had set our alarm for 7 am Saturday to make a date for a swim with the dolphins, but the growling, crackling assault of the hotel PA, just after 6, more than suggested a change in plan. The hotel announcer's voice was so loud that it could wake even those who had Mai Tied one on the night before, and his message was chilling: a tsunami was coming, and the five-hour evacuation warning was now officially underway.

IThe fact that the earthquake that rocked Chile and precipitated the tsunami had caused hundreds of deaths to families like ours was not our first thought.

Our first thought was our own family: to make sure our daughter, who is five, and my uncle, who is in a wheelchair, were safe as could be. Safety's destination was the expansive, poolside lanai of our hotel (the Hilton Waikiki Embassy Suites), the scene of our lush al fresco breakfasts and festive evening manager's receptions; it's hard to go wrong with live Polynesian music and free umbrella drinks.

Even at 6:30 a.m. the lanai was crowded with a scene that was surprisingly normal: people eating omelettes and pancakes and, for the Japanese guests should they wish, miso soup and rice. Staff cheerfully went about their business. Russ, the lanai's genial morning manager, brought our daughter some sweets, as usual, and when my wife asked what the locals do when tsunamis hit, he smiled and winked and said "We grab our surfboards."

He had been a kid when the tsunami of 1960 roared across Hilo and killed 61 people, so he was quick to temper the joke with assurances about the hotel plan. There was abundant bottled water and non-perishable foodstuffs, and the hotel's transformer was encased in tsunami-proof housing which, I suppose, meant that it could float. The hotel was new, a block back from the shoreline, and the lanai was a story above the "vertical evacuation" minimum the authorities were announcing, one that saw guests from other, low-lying hotels transferred into ours.

The local TV, commendably calm and informative in its coverage, reported the dos and don'ts: stay high and dry, stay off the roads, and have the tsunami kit handy. For the most part, people did.

Those few who didn't piled into gas stations and food shops, although my own mission to scoop some supplies in Waikiki was ironic: I could get cash out of the First Hawaiian ATM on chic and empty Kalakaua Avenue, but couldn't find a shop that was open. Even the ubiquitous ABC Stores, the convenience stores that have been a beacon to tourists since 1964, were closed, at least the ones close to the water.

As tsunami warning sirens wailed with long, mournful howls, nothing like a police siren's brief, out-of-my-way urgency, the Honolulu Police Department drove cars two-abreast down Kalakaua Avenue, issuing public address warnings to find higher ground to those few of us on the street. The police were on Waikiki Beach, too, and with a light touch, made sure no one did anything crazy. No one seemed to want to do anything but stare out to the turquoise sea, trying to parse its intentions.

On the water, it looked as if the Honolulu Regatta was underway, as dozens of sailboats bobbed offshore, sails furled, waiting it out. Hotel guests on smart phones or with DVD cameras prepared to report on the coming carnage of the reported 8-foot wave, with a Blue Hawaiian in hand should the bar ever open.

And then, it did. There was no dramatic "all clear." Just a shift of light over the yardarm of midday and Dennis the bartender turning on the TV to the Olympics. Longboard beers were ordered all round to go with the men's curling gold medal match between Canada and Norway. All seemed surreally normal.

Back down on the street, Kalakaua Avenue kicked back into life. Louis Vuitton and Max Mara opened up, and Japanese tourists headed for the shops. A couple of blocks north, on the less-tony Kuhio Ave., hippie kids were smoking dope outside a walk-up motel, and people stood thirty deep down the block to grab a burger at Jack in the Box.

Inside a now open ABC Store, a portly Dutch tourist refused to believe that the economy size box of chocolate- covered macadamia nuts that he brandished at the till would expire in March 2012, as the patient employee kept telling him. "No, they will be done sooner than that," he protested. The clerk looked at me with a mixture of exasperation and resignation, for he had unwittingly nailed a truth: the clock ticks fast for the next tsunami warning, which even in paradise, has no expiry date.