My daughter had a stressful last day of her honeymoon on Kauai yesterday. Her flight was set to leave at 7:40pm. United initially cancelled the flight so I told her to get water and food and take their rental car up the highway to higher ground up the mountain. Unbeknownst to me, her husband’s parents booked them a hotel room on the 10th floor of a hotel near the ocean instead. Nice people but city slickers. No respect for the power of nature. They thought being on the top floor of a hotel would be best. I disagreed. There’s an old saying about the sea amongst sailors and coastal residents, “Water always wins.” I didn’t want my daughter anywhere near that bay in a man-made structure, 10 floors up or not. I found the local tsunami evacuation maps online and sent them to her in-laws and my daughter. The map clearly showed the hotel was in the red zone! Experts recommend evacuating to HIGHER GROUND, not a higher FLOOR. On the Alaskan Peninsula, where I guide bear hunts, the native villages all have a “tsunami house” about a half mile up on the mountains above the villages. I’ve also hunted on grass covered dunes that are a half mile inland from the bays on the Pacific side. These giant dunes were formed many years ago by tsunamis.
Just about the time that I had convinced them to drive up the mountain, the United pilot convinced the airline to go ahead with the flight and depart earlier. The airport is above the evacuation zone in the green zone so I told the newlyweds to get to the airport and get on the flight. Luckily, that United pilot pushed the airline to do the flight. The newlyweds got airborne just as the tsunami was starting. As we all know now, it turned out to be a big nothing burger but how were we to know? We were all worried due to the monster size of the earthquake, being 8.8!
My hat is off to that pilot! It was a real relief for my wife and I to know that our baby girl was on that flight. It’s a direct flight to Denver and they landed at 6am, safe and sound.
Luckily, all this tsunami drama happened on their last day of an otherwise great honeymoon.
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