Tsunami

Yesterday a massive (8.2M) earthquake struck off the coast of Chile causing significant damage including tsunami. The chances of tsunami reaching Hawaiian coasts was low and after a few hours the official prediction was that it would not be a danger here. Tsunami can certainly propagate far across oceans but since no alert has been declared it would appear the chances of significant impact are low (to be clear, this is not intended as an interpretation of this event).

A long-time islander phoned me to suggest that other than staying well above and away from the shore, a good precaution is to fill up the tank with gas.

For future reference you can find official reports about tsunami at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center website. The official report on this tsunami event which should be updated as things progress is here. There is a little more information from the Pacific Disaster Center (pdc.org) here.
Official information about tsunami including what to do in the event of one can be found at this FAQ.

I must say the official information on the web is not very well designed and as a result it is hard to find solid information. It's actually quite a runaround with lots of indirection which it should not be. While the impact was still being evaluated I tried to find out some solid information:

• The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center website shows a graphical "low" meter ... yet they are evaluating the impact of a significant earthquake in the ocean. Isn't that at least a "medium"?
• There is small text asking you to "Click here to read the latest tsunami message" ... they can't be bothered to actually show you a summary right there. That you need to click is not easy to find.
• Clicking takes you to the report linked above that says "WE ARE STILL INVESTIGATING LEVEL OF TSUNAMI THREAT FOR HAWAII." (They don't seem to know that the Internet can do lower case making the thing harder to read than it could be.)
• And buried near the end is the one Hawaii related fact available: IF TSUNAMI WAVES IMPACT HAWAII THEIR ESTIMATED EARLIEST ARRIVAL TIME IS 0324 AM HST WED 02 APR 2014

Kauai Civil Defense was about the same in terms of obscuring the information and challenging the user to traverse a few web pages to find anything useful.

• There is a mostly blank page - where the latest info could easily appear - with a very small inconspicuous link "Pacific Disaster Center - Past 24 hours Message Archive".
• Click to go to Pacific Disaster Center (pdc.org) where there is a world map with several colored icons on it.
• Under Recent Events there is a like to the 8.2M earthquake, but clicking on that just changes the map. And there is a banner: " Breaking News:  Check Facebook for latest info on 8.2". So our civil defense depends on Facebook now.
• On the left under "News" is an article about April being Tsunami Awareness Month (this is a fitting start indeed).

That there are so many sources of information variously pointing elsewhere and completely different looking web sites to navigate to find the key results is really a shame. In an emergency the last thing I want to do is go clicking from here to there - everyone should have one place they can go to get official latest word on events like this.

It's almost as important to get an early clear opinion that the risk is likely low. Instead, it took hours to get anything more than "WE ARE STILL INVESTIGATING" - a preliminary assessment should be available within minutes, noting that it is provisional and better information will be developed soon (ideally, providing a time frame to expect to learn more).

Hilo tsunami

Notably on April 1, in 1946, a large tsunami hit Hawaii causing great destruction notably in Hilo on the big island. (The photo at left is from that event.)

Note: Lately I have not been posting much here so this timely event prompted me to get back to it. Having moved here I haven't found the right new direction for writing here: previously exploring and touring topics have largely been covered, hikes have long since been covered, and yet I have not been here long enough to have much useful to say as a resident either. I do plan to continue but it will take time to find a new rhythm. Suggestions in the comments are always welcome.