Japan just had an 8.8 quake and an apparent tsunami... check your local news sources...
8.8 is a serious quake!! It is almost 9:00 PM here and there is nothing other than regular programing on the TV. After the last tsunami alert from the quake in South America, the civil defense sirens sounded about four hours before the predicted arrival time of the surge. It was minimal. I will check the regular nightly news at 10:00. I worry more about the people in Japan. Thanks for the "heads up".
The civil defense sirens sounded here at 10:00 PM. The news, along with video of the damaging wave in Japan is on the local news. Most regular programming has been replaced by reporting of the quake and subsequent wave in Japan.
Any wave generated is predicted to arrive in Hawaii at about 3:00 AM, Friday morning. It is now 10:15 PM Thursday evening.
It is now Friday morning and it appears that there was minimal wave or surge activity on any of the islands. I stayed up last night until the reports came in from Wake Island. Wake Island reported only a 2 or 2 1/2 foot rise in sea level. Although it was said that Wake was not a good predictor because of its very small size, I felt that Hawaii was going to be OK. I went to sleep. I am going to get the morning paper shortly and see if there were any problems in any of the boat harbors. My condo looks out over the south shore and everything this morning looked exactly like it did yesterday. I am very thankful for that.
Larry, I did the same as you (watching Wake Island data) but then as I was trying to go back to sleep the fire department parked in front of my house and told us to get out now! Sleepless night trying to lay four accross in a Honda Pilot as the mosquitoes had their way with us! Glad there is no major damage, but very tired today.
Hi Kevin Sounds like you had a miserable night last night. I hope you can catch up on your rest tonight. There was damage done by the surges at the small boat harbors here. There was video on the news of boats crashing into other boats and docks. Some of the docks were damaged or destroyed. Some of the boats that went out to sea to ride out the waves in safety had no docks when they returned. There was also video of trashed lower floors of a condominium. I did not catch the location of the condo. I think that it was in the East Oahu, Hawaii Kai area. I have not heard of any casualties, nor even any injuries. Although it has to be hard for people whose boats or property were damaged, I think that it is safe to say that we were very fortunate.
Thanks God you're all OK. Even in Belgium we registered the quake, but we didn't actually feel it. Now I understand the Tsunami signs and sirenes along the coastline...