Tsunami

Our first morning in Maui was one to remember. Mattias was up at 4:30 am and I took that shift. Just before 6am Justine got up and I went back to bed to try and get another hour of sleep. My head was one the pillow for a few minutes when these sirens started going off. Justine came in saying "Is that for a hurricane?". I glibly said "No, there are no hurricanes in the Pacific, they are Typhoons. I bet that is a Tsunami warning."

We turned on the TV and yes, a tsunami was scheduled to hit the islands around 11:30am. It was caused by the massive earthquake in Chile the night before. They were watching for tsunamis and buoys off Peru indicated there was one. After some time of fretting, we packed up the car with all our possessions, headed to a grocery store to buy water and food. We had no idea where the best place to go was. During our 45min wait in line to buy water a local told us of a park in Napali which is where we went. I was so happy we asked for parks as most people just parked on the side of the road outside the evacuation zone. That would have been no fun especially with a three year old. To make a long story short our first day in Maui with the best weather of the trip we sat in a park with a grumpy boy who only wanted to go to the beach. The surge was 4 inches at our condo. I may grumble a bit but I am grateful for the warning system and happy to be safe than sorry. If there was no warning we would have been on the beach at 11:30am.