listening to: nothing
so if you hadn't heard by now, hawai'i got hit with a 6.7 earthquake early sunday morning. the epicenter was located several miles off of the northeastern coastline of the island of hawai'i, and was still felt all the way on o'ahu.
i was getting ready for a manager's meeting and jon was on the phone making plans to go surfing when our building started to tremble. the tremor intensified for a quick few seconds before dying down. being from the big island, it surprised me but i didn't take too much note of it. it was eerie experiencing an earthquake on the 27th floor, but everything stayed in place and the building kept intact. i think being so high up helped cushion us from directly feeling it.
a few moments later, we lost power. i would later find out that WE included the entire state.
i drove to waikiki majorily unaffected, besides almost being hit by an unattentive driver trying to reach an offramp from the left-lane as well as a growing irritation at other drivers as they went out of turn at intersections, whether because they lacked the knowledge or just plain didn't care that a nonworking traffic light should be treated as a four-way stop.
when decisions were made to still open the stores even without electricity, we were ready to begin our manager's meeting when marketplace security came running over, shouting to us to evacuate immediately due to a tsunami warning.
and that's when i broke down, with the added assistance of pregnancy hormones, of course. as the others started to gather their belongings, i stood sobbing, worrying about jon being out on the water when the tsunami hit. i didn't have my cellphone to relay to him the news. he didn't surf with his phone anyway. and cellular service at that moment was unreliable and sporatic.
i finally calmed down a few minutes later with assurance from my coworkers that lifeguards as well as the coast guard would be out there to inform him and he'd probably be home before i did. but of course when i got home, he wasn't. i deliberated between driving up to mililani to wait at his friend's house or to just stay home. i opted to stay home. as much as i fret over jon, he is ultimately capable of taking care of himself, whereas sumi-cat is not.
so i hunkered down and took a short nap ... and was awaken by him complaining that the surf sucked. that's my jon for you.
we've experienced power outages before and have since learned that no electricity also means no water. thankfully however, the building has back-up generators so the elevators still run. we decided to a leisurely walk to wal*mart to pass some time away and pick up some necessities. our short outing ended up turning into a forty-five minute excursion as we had to wait in line to order what we needed and then wait some more for our name to be called to pick up our purchase. thankfully, i had taken out money the day before and had a whole $20.00 to spend on necessities: bottled water and wheat bread.
we spent most of the day lounging in bed, napping, playing cards and feasting on wheat bread and sardines and nutella for dessert (which i'm still not all too certain about its sudden appearance in our pantry). jon kept us updated throughout the day with his am/fm headset. at about 1:00, we were relieved to find out that pearl city was one of the first areas to get power restored and happily waited for our turn.
that relief quickly turned into frustration as, at 6:00 in the evening, we looked out at the darkening sky to see wal*mart as well as traffic lights and streetlamps and the surrounding subdivisions lit up and came to realize that we were NOT one of the fifty-six hundred in pearl city to receive their power. how unfortunate for us, we were on a completely different power grid. we tried to be optimistic, at least we could go out and eat. that was until we opened our door and was met by the pitchblack of an unlit hallway and realized that the building's generators must have expended all of its auxiliary power. no hallway lights meant no elevators. even the emergency stairwell lights weren't on. i was NOT about to trek down twenty-seven floors in complete darkness, nonetheless go back UP afterwards. so we went back inside in utter defeat, lit some candles and returned to lounging around.
it wasn't until almost 11:00pm, when i had just taken out my contacts and was getting ready for bed when our electricity was restored. and almost an hour later, we had water.
what i've learned? as much as jon and i strive hard to eat healthy and try not to buy a lot of canned foods, we should stock up a bit in case another emergency occurs. all we had was three cans of sardines and one can each of vienna sausages and corned beef hash. we also need to buy another flashlight to replace the one we lost a couple of years ago. and we should also keep a case of bottled water on hand.