Utah Family in Peril of Tsunami?

We have lived in Utah all our lives. The only time we have seen a siren like this is when we have been in the West Desert looking for geodes. They use them to warn of a nerve gas leak at Tooele Army Depot. In Hawaii, they use them to warn of a tsunami. When we got there, I showed this siren to Janene and Mary Lynn. Mary Lynn commented "Oh, wouldn't that be horrible to be here on vacation and have that siren go off"

Janene and I went backpacking on the Na Pali coast (more about that later) and had just gotten back to our condo when we heard the sirens go off. Janene said she just thought the maintenance  people were cleaning the pool. NOT! We turned on the TV and found out that Japan had just been hit with a tsunami and it was headed straight to Hawaii.

When we were on the trail, there were markers that showed where the tsunami "safe" zone was. We were surprised to run into them after we had hiked up three sets of switchbacks. They were three hundred feet above sea level. As we watched the details of what had happened to Japan and saw the tsunami warning map, we realized that Shon was also in Hawaii working, and Chelane was supposed to be in Thailand, also within range of the tsunami. We talked with Shon by phone just as the sirens sounded in Waikiki. It took a while longer to track Chelane down. She was lucky. She was in Laos - and safe. Here fully one half of our family from Utah was being threatened by a tsunami

 There was Hawaii - right at the end of the red finger of danger. We ran to the store to buy supplies in case the power station was knocked out and the airport was damaged. We stayed up watching the news, but when we realized that it would be dark at the time it hit Kauai and the projected wave was only six feet high, I decided to go to bed. Janene said " Are you kidding?, I can't sleep. I need to stay up. We are from Utah. I will never see a tsunami again in my lifetime." She went to bed at 4:30AM and at 5:30AM all our families and friends started calling to see if we were OK. We were OK, Shon was fine and Chelane was safe.

For us, this was an inconvenience and a momentary scare. For the people of Japan this is a life changing event. We have tried to contact our friend Kimie and her family Jyunichi, Kenichi and Yuri, but have been unsuccessful. We are praying for their family and hope they see this blog and can let us know they are safe. We know they watch our blog from time to time. They are between Fukashima and Tokyo so they should be safe. We are thankful that our family was protected. We pray that theirs is as well.
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