No, but she might have been subjected to frequent stupidity tsunamis in Kansas. At least this one is most likely temporary and a single phenomenon (fingers crossed). With the flurry of stupid currently going around central state legislature’s (see Utah, South Dakota), she is probably safer in Hawaii.

To say nothing of the deep fissures in logic in Oklahoma.

When I was a GI stationed at Hickam Air Plane Patch there on Oahu, we always figured that the end of the world as we knew it would be the tsunami resulting from California falling into the ocean.

Next time yo speak with the L&TCasey, tell her to hold on tight.

Funny. I was thinking of the L&T Casey this morning at my kid’s basketball game when all the fouls were being called against us. But I thought hollering “CALL THE FUCKING GAME BOTH WAYS!!!” might be a little extreme for eleven year olds.

Stay safe, Casey.

No, she’d be calling from the storm cellar saying she wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Glad you posted this. I’ll be checking for updates. Can the L&T Casey leave comments?

we wouldn’t be having this conversation if she had gone to Kansas State.

But there would be the danger from tornadoes dropping houses on the local witches.

And that tsunami of stupidity mentioned above.

At 9 am Hawaii time, all appears to be okay here. Of course we’re “up-country” [at an elevation of around 2500' on the side of the volcano.]

Reports of long lines for gas at gas stations and at grocery stores show that this mentality is not limited to East Coast snow storms [which I got to experience just three short weeks ago].

They are closing coastal roads here @ 10 am. Reports I’m hearing on local news are that guests @ Waikiki hotels are being moved to higher floors in hotels. Don’t know where Chaminade is located relative to the coast, but with this much warning, things should be safe.

When we were in Hawai’i in the early 80s we had a tsunami alert following an earthquake in Alaska. It turned into a fiasco. Luckily, the waves that arrived were minimal, because so much traffic resulting from people leaving work in central Honolulu was clogging the coastal roads that hundreds of people would have been killed if the waves had been higher.

Of course, today the warning came in the middle of the night, so that the evacuation will not be workers streaming out of downtown (and Oahu’s rush hours were epic on ordinary days) via the main cross-Honolulu artery. And of course procedures and roads have probably changed a lot since my day. But people still have to move upcountry and I can just imagine the madness of the highway leading up to the Waipio Gentry exit (where I used to get off after at least 10 minutes of waiting in line every weekday evening).

Here’s hoping the waves are just as weenie as they turned out to be when I was there. I’m sure the L&TC will be just fine as long as she got moving right away.

How long until the Religious Right uses this as “proof” that God hates Obama so much that he’s out there trying to wash away the Presidents birthplace.

Or wait. Is this really a secret Obama plot to have his birth certificate be permanently destroyed in a natural disaster?!

Kurt Vonnegut once suggested (on the Daily Show, I think) that natural disasters were the Earth’s way of purging itself from the ‘virus’ of humanity. If that is indeed the case, Earth must be pretty sick of us right now because this is some nasty purging.

Off topic but something I thought this group would enjoy this historical letter from 1990 to a tobbaco company (via Mindhacks):

It starts:

Dear Mr. Johnston

While at first we were enchanted with your popular new advertising campaign featuring head-shots of a “cool camel,’ in the course of an in-depth analysis by our media researchers the subliminal message inherent in your ads was cracked. Consequently, we must withdraw our agency’s support of this ad and include Camel Cigarettes on our hit-list of “Prurient Products” to boycott.

Your subtle ploy to titillate your audience with pornographic imagery of male genitalia disguised as harmless camel heads has not gone undetected. You can only imagine the extreme sense of anxiety, frustration and embarrassment I now feel when I am continually exposed to this graphic homosexual depiction of penile putrescence.

We have a bone to pick with you: where do you get off on displaying this root of all sin to hype your cigarettes? How long will you continue to promote your product by flashing gigantic sex glands on bill-boards throughout this country? As an up and coming organization dedicated to educating the American pubic about decency in advertising, we do not advocate censorship. However, while our desire is not to be too hard on you, we, as chaste Christian consumers, strongly urge you to cut off this media deluge of frontal nudity.

and gets funnier.

We have a tsunami watch here as well (British Columbia) but the concern mainly applies to boaters. These quakes are freaking me out. We’re long overdue for a big one here and waaaaaaaaaaah, no. Just no!

Uphill is a volcano, and downhill is a tsunami? Just another day in paradise, I suppose.

;-)

Stay safe!

Isn’t San Diego also on the warning list? Those bassetts are awfully low to the ground. Hope you got them water wings.

Prayers and crossed fingers for the L&T Casey and my old friend Steve.

Thanks everyone for the thoughts… as of right now we are just waiting for the waves to hit. I am far enough from the coast that we haven’t had to evacuate my dorms, but at the same time I’m still planning on heading to campus which is even farther from the coast, just to be on the safe side. I’ll keep everyone posted on anything that happens.

Uphill is a volcano, and downhill is a tsunami?

Bahaha. Well, this volcano’s last eruption was in the 1700′s.

Last tsunami was 1960.

Just waitin’ and watching tv. Tsunami has not yet reached Hilo [Big Island], though it was due a few minutes ago.

Newscasters are saying that with these islands “in the middle of nowhere,” what happens is that the tsunami waves wrap around [each of] the islands, rather than like a storm surge that would hit one particular shore.

Also, it’s not just one wave, but successive series of waves, later ones that may be bigger than the initial ones.

They’re having to tell all the surfers to stay out of the water, because, of course, the “waves” are looking pretty good.

To start with I can’t understand anyone who would want to surf. (I realize that water just wants to drown me…) But wanting to surf when you’re on tsunami alert? Jeez Louise, them folks is nutz!

L&T Casey has a good head on her shoulders, already planning on heading further inland. Stay safe and dry, there will be plenty to see afterwards.

Hey, some crazy surfers here get towed out into 40′ waves by jetskis so they can surf back in.

Okay, the tv cameras focused on Hilo Bay (a little bay right next to the Hilo Airport on the Big Island) are showing what looks like a speeded up time-lapse photograph of incoming & outgoing tides.

You can see the water receding [like the ocean is "taking a breath"]– the reef, usually submerged, is exposed. Then the water comes back, covering the reef and beach. And then this cycle repeats.

But there’s no huge visible wave approaching the shore.

There are lots of pics of roads closed & deserted at various points around the islands, particularly close to shore.

So thus far: no big deal.

I thought that “taking a breath” that you describe was the precursor, and the bigger the breath the bigger the coming wave, but all I’ve got is “book larnin’,” so I may be wildly wrong.

But there’s no huge visible wave approaching the shore.

There wouldn’t be if the surge was going to be less than, say, 12 feet (the highest predicted for this was 7 feet, as I recall), and even then it would start as just a line on the horizon and only look like a hump in the water as it came toward the shore. It’s the underwater architecture that really drives how tall it gets at the break. It’s the swiftness of the inundation, faster even than a hurricane storm surge, that does the most damage. Water, moving fast, even at knee level, can be EXTREMELY destructive. Much, much more than you’d think just by looking at it.

As best I can tell [based on local tv coverage], this is now over.

My remark about the “huge wave approaching the shore” was just saying that what you usually see in reports of tsunamis was not happening [if, as you suggest, it ever does].

Thanks for your additional info.

Looks like everything’s over, now, so no real point in registering a comment except to say that hours ago, when we were watching coverage of the earthquake and the concern about the tsunami, I said to my husband, “Tbogg’s daughter is going to school in Hawaii. He and his wife must be frantic.” Because apparently the Tboggs have become close personal friends of ours through the glory of the Internet.

A note to L&TC’s parents: my son lived in Lahaina for twelve years, and every time a weather event made the news (more often in the form of a hurricane, but sometimes a tsunami) I was just sick with worry here on the mainland. Finally, he said, “Mom — I promise I’ll jump into Haleakala next time it looks like it’s going to be windy, if you think that would shelter me from the storm. Otherwise, your worrying about this stuff just makes what’s otherwise one of the most interesting things about living on Maui something to dread because I know you’re having a fit.” I guess my calling him every time our weather report bothered me got on his nerves…

More live streaming coverage
http://www.ustream.tv/hitsunami
(mostly silly, trivial commentary though, as there’s nothing to see)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10461062-36.html

Bassets, and bad weather where the L&T Casey is….you guys need some calm times, already.

I’m with the extended intertube family that’s keeping y’all in our thoughts.

And to think, I could be being evacuated from the historic housing off Hickam Field right this minute – if the HR fiends had bothered to read their directives….

Meanwhile – try these puppies!
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/5003239

I’m pretty sure that this logo depicts a Barack Obama nuclear missile strike generating a tsunami… an islamic tsunami!!!11!.

Needless to say, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if she had gone to Kansas State.

No, instead, she’d have been subjected to weekly tornadoes. And contrary to popular myth, they have been known to flatten properties other than trailer parks.

Not to mention being assaulted by pro-life billboards about every other mile on the highway.

Kansas. The asshole’s in the proximate middle of the body for a reason.

UPDATE:
So the Tsunami Warning has been called off due to basically three foot waves that couldn’t hurt anything. In the three years I have lived in Hawaii, I have been in about 4 or 5 either tsunami/ hurricane/ flash flood warnings, none of which have ever amounted to anything. Thank you for all the concern for the islands, but now the thoughts and prayers should be going to Chile, where over 200 people are dead and the number will continue to rise. Mother Nature seems pissed and it’s time we start doing something about it.

Thank you again.

I guess that means filming of the latest installment of Gilad’s exercise show will be delayed!

Thanks, Casey. Stay well.

Happy to hear the non-event. but regarding Spam, I live a couple hours away from the Mecca to Spam: http://www.spam.com/games/Museum/default.aspx.

So, if anyone is needy for some Spam Swag, just let me know.

Sometimes, it makes me sad that the most famous product out of MN is SPAM. Other times, it’s funnier than hell.

L&T Casey, glad that you are safe and that the waves were not tsunamic.

Heydave, hey! – you’re a MN boy, eh? Me too – girl, that is, originally. Originally MN, that is, not originally girl, still girl, tho’ well-matured and no longer MN but NJ — you take my meaning.

I had farming relatives in Austin as a little kid, from whom I learned certain lessons of farm life and death, and how to gather new-laid eggs warm from the nests in the henhouse, and how to scrape my shoes carefully before entering the kitchen from the yard. Were you in the area during the Great Hormel Strike back in the 80s?

I’m glad everything’s OK in Hawaii, TBoggs all. The advice about Bassetts and water-wings seems sensible.

It seems like an efficient way of combining all the dangers of surfing, skydiving and skateboarding through a junkyard all in one sport.