DOWNSIZING OR MOVING UP? FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 WESTHAWAIITODAY.COM 5 YEARS LATER Reporter reflects on covering tsunami that wrecked West Hawaii BY CHELSEA JENSEN WEST HAWAII TODAY cjensen@westhawaiitoday.com It starts with just another text. Beep, beep, beep chirps my new iPhone shortly before 8 p.m. March 10, 2011. It’s a noise I’m used to hearing, just another text message — who wants what now, I wonder. But no, it’s not just another text message and someone needing something. It’s a message that looking back upon now five years later changed not only my life, but the lives of many in the community where I was born and raised. The text on my screen: A magnitude-7.9 earthquake near the east coast of Honshu, Japan, has struck and a tsunami watch has been issued for Hawaii. My stomach turns. A pit forms. I’ve got CALL McCOURT! that feeling — that feeling when you know it’s not going to be good, but this time it is serious. At age 25, I’d been on this Earth for just over a quarter-century, but had never experienced a tsunami or hurricane on the Big Island, or any real major disaster for that matter. I was lucky, though I do remember a couple instances where watches were issued, like when Hurricane Iniki passed south of the island in 1992, and a couple times the emergency warning sirens blared, including once where me, my sister and parents met up with my grandparents on Kamehameha III Road to wait out tsunami waves that never came. But nothing that made me feel like this. Looking for confirmation that it wasn’t true, that a tsunami was not coming, that everything was fine, I flipped on the TV. The cameras are fixed on Japan’s shoreline, capturing the massive waves racing toward shore. The virulent water crashing over seawalls constructed to hold back GET IN & GET OUT INSIDE Real Property Solutions for Kona Buyers and SellersSM 4A saturday, march 12, 2011 | west hawaii today from page one King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel will close for an estimated 3 months for repairs chelsea jensen | west hawaii today West Hawaii Today The roof of a house is seen floating in Kealakekua Bay Friday. “The surge that came went up under my house, and under the neighbors’ home behind me, about 50 alii drive: King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel to close for 3 months for repairs A sign marking the start and finish of the Ford Ironman World ‘It’s total devastation’ Coast Guard: Kailua Pier condemned Powerful quake, tsunami kill hundreds in Japan Tsunami swamps Kailua Village Photos of tsunami damage in Kona Pages 4A, 14A see ALii dRiVE PAge 4A By ChELSEA jENSEN wesT hAwAii TodAy cjensen@westhawaiitoday.com One home was washed to sea and as many as six others were destroyed along Kealakekua Bay on Friday morning after series of tsunamis surged ashore. Off-duty assault case moves forward “It’s total devastation. There are six families’ homes on the south side of the bay that were the hardest hit,” said Hawaii County Police Officer Randy Morris as he walked the debris-ridden Puuhonua Road. “(Seven) houses were totally demolished, five cars are flipped over, and one car is in the bay.” Morris said the worst of the waves hit around 5 a.m., causing major damage to structures and filling roads with debris, including large rocks, fencing, fish and other items. He recalled watching the ocean quickly leave the bay, exposing about 150 feet of reef, before surging ashore. Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . . .2A Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6A Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1B Your Health . . . . . . . . . .10A Index INDEX Annie’s Mailbox . . . . . . 4B Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6B Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5B Nation & World . . . . . . . . .3A Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6A Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1B 808-217-8574 75-5645 Kuakini Hwy. Corner of Palani & Kuakini across from Kona Seaside Hotel AlohaKIAKONA.com CRUISE THE ISLAND IN A BRAND NEW... $279/month to own $0DOWN *Payments are based on a selling price of $17,495. 75 months no money down based on a 1.99% Oac. Price is after a $1,000 current offi cial rebate Exclusive 2016 $259/month to own $0DOWN $269/month $0DOWN $329/ month $0DOWN *Prices are plus tax, 245 doc. fee, lic fee and safety check fee. 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Jami Harper, 39, Kailua- Kona, is charged with seconddegree assault and was in Judge Margaret Masunaga’s 3rd District Courtroom, where the state had to prove there was probable cause to carry the case forward. In the end, Masunaga found there was enough there to continue the case in circuit court. The crux of the conflicting stories was who acted as the initial aggressor when the two met on the third floor of their apartment complex around 11 p.m. that night. The victim testified he was on his cellphone with his friend when he heard yelling and pounding on his screen door. Still talking to his friend, he told the court he went to the door to find out what was going on. “I could hear ranting in a loud voice about something I didn’t understand,” he said. The victim’s friend told police that he could hear yelling and the victim asking who was at the door, according to police testimony. The victim, who lives on the third floor of the unit, said he opened the inner wooden door to see a man he didn’t recognize, later identified as Harper, shouting at him from the other side of the screen door. He wasn’t able to understand what the man was saying, so he opened the screen door so he could see and hear better. He didn’t feel threatened, he told deputy prosecuting attorney Kate Deleon. Harper agreed that he went to the victim’s door, according to statements to police. But here the first major divergence in the stories starts. The victim said he had his right hand on the doorway when he was grabbed and dragged out. “He pulled me down and I BY GRAHAM MILLDRUM WEST HAWAII TODAY gmilldrum@westhawaiitoday.com SEE TSUNAMI PAGE 10A SEE HARPER PAGE 7A Arms and legs scrambling in the smelly, dirty water, I feel the back of my knees being ripped by lava rock. It’s the wall, right in front of Menehune Coffee. I put my arms out, I don’t know why, and I hook myself on the railing there. CHELSEA JENSEN/WEST HAWAII TODAY abe binder | special to west Hawaii today yards inland,” said Shane Palacat. “It lifted an entire house, the blue one, completely intact and left it floating in the ocean.” Video and photos taken by witnesses early Friday morning showed water overtake Kailua Pier and pour onto Alii Drive and the vehicle turnaround beside King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel. Water flooded the lobby floor of the hotel, pooling in the parking lot on the building’s mauka side. Muddy lines on the walls and windows of buildings across Alii Drive from the pier showed the water settled about two feet above the ground and reaching several hundred feet inland. Police Assistant Chief Henry Tavares said the West Hawaii damage was concentrated in Kailua-Kona and South Kona, particularly in Napoopoo. No one was injured and the evacuation, which began at about 10 p.m. Thursday, went smoothly. Alii Drive reopened to traffic at 4:15 p.m. Friday. The Big Island’s visitor industry was dealt a significant blow by the tsunami. Kailua Pier, where cruise ships unload passengers, has been condemned, Coast Guard Petty Officer Angela Henderson said Friday night. Hotels along Alii Drive were damaged, as were stores and restaurants. King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel sustained heavy water to the lobby, restaurant and kitchen and will be closed an estimated three months, county officials said. Restaurants damaged included Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and the Kona Inn restaurant. The surge continued Friday, although it had stopped topping the sea wall near the pier. McCreery said the center’s scientists didn’t know how long the surge would last, although similar surges for small tsunami have left water oscillating for days. “The islands trap energy,” McCreery said. “(Waves) refract just like light waves refract. They want to bend toward shallow waters. They bend toward shallow waters and keep going. ... The water just dances around the islands.” Bays seem to “kind of concentrate the energy,” he added. “In a way, it’s a little bit counterintuitive to surf waves. Maybe it’s because when (tsunami) get into shallow waters, they behave more like a current or flash flood.” The tsunami itself was already on its way to South America on Friday afternoon, McCreery said. The tsunami center couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the waves moved beyond the island chain. The damaging effects of the water were visible Friday morning, even as county crews and hotel workers began scraping mud and sand from the coastal road. Chunks of sidewalk — some 10 to 15 feet long — sat in the roadway, while debris ranging in size from small tables to plastic coat hangers littered the street and sidewalk. Logs of undetermined origin sat atop the seawall, while newspaper racks, trash cans and a shave ice stand were overturned nearby. A piece of furniture, a couch perhaps, floated in Kailua Bay, and a shopping cart was stuck in the sand at the water’s entrance by the pier. Pieces of concrete, once part of the seawall in front of Kona Inn and Kona Canoe Club, had been ripped loose and tossed dozens of feet away from the ocean. The Kona Inn’s open-air dining area was badly damaged, with most of the restaurant’s furniture piled in the southwestern corner, deposited by the currents. Other pieces of furniture were found jammed under buildings, while empty takeout boxes lined the walkway from the restaurant back to the shopping center. Most of the stores inside the shopping area, which is more inland and slightly elevated above the ground, appeared to be untouched by the water. Plastic bottles and other debris were piled against the gated entrance to Hulihee Palace, pushed there by the waves. Palace Administrator Fanny Au Hoy issued a statement Friday afternoon, reporting three vehicles’ worth of artifacts were removed from the palace. The basement had been flooded, she said. She had been unable to enter the palace to fully assess the damage, however. Hulihee reopened in September 2009, nearly three years after it sustained $1.5 million in damage in earthquakes. the October 2006 The Department of Water Supply shut off water near Keauhou Bay, after a 12-inch water main broke. The main was repaired by 3:40 p.m. Friday, a spokeswoman said. Employees at King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel were assessing damage to the iconic oceanfront spot. Water flooded through the lobby, which was renovated and reopened less than a year ago, following a twoyear, $35 million overhaul. Furniture was stacked in piles in the restaurant, people reported seeing fish in the swimming pool, bikinis and sarongs from one of the boutiques were strewn about the premises in bushes and glass storefronts; doors were cracked or completely gone. The damage is concentrated to “mainly the lobby,” hotel Sales Director Deanna Isbister said. “People are cleaning up the debris.” Some hotel guests evacuated themselves when the tsunami advisory was first announced, others climbed into buses, spending the night at Kealakehe High School, only to return to town in the morning and find they couldn’t immediately get back into their hotel rooms for the remainder of their luggage. By Friday afternoon, Isbister said, guests were able to retrieve their belongings; those scheduled to stay at the hotel were being booked into other hotels in the area, she said. Amy Wunsch of Vancouver, Wash., was one of those guests who left immediately. “The evacuation plan was great,” Wunsch said. “You just look in the phone book.” She spent the night in her rental car about six miles out of Kailua- Kona, far uphill of the inundation zone. Karen and Pete Wagner of Arlington, Wash., also spent the night in their car, on Mamalahoa Highway near Holualoa. They’ve been staying at the Wyndam Kona Hawaiian Resort. They left the condo “as soon as I had my bags packed and the room cleaned up,” Karen Wagner said. “I called the front desk and she said we don’t have to worry until you hear the sirens. About five minutes later, we heard the sirens.” Evacuating went smoothly, Pete Wagner added. Several businesses at the corner of Palani Road and Alii Drive sustained significant damage. Ian Foo, owner of Hypr, a shop selling surfboards, canoes and other items, was able to remove some of his merchandise, but left about 40 percent of the items at the small store. “You didn’t think it would come up this high,” Foo said, walking around the shop, where swirls in the mud and sand showed how the water moved around the small, freestanding building. “We couldn’t move it all last night. There was no way.” Insurance won’t cover the damages, Foo added. “This is horrendous,” he said. Chains and caution tape crossed walkways and alleys, while dozens of emergency workers were surveying the street and oceanfront buildings for broken water lines and gas leaks. Heavy equipment operators cleared sand, small fish and other debris from the street, while police officers and Community Emergency Response Teams kept people off the street. Cindy Coats, owner of Cindy Coats Gallery, pointed to the wall that once divided her shop and the one next door. That wall was washed out at the bottom, sitting nearly parallel to the floor. The door to the gallery was gone, with the glass broken out of the frame and what was left of the frame bent. Much of her artwork was damaged. She did remove some items from the gallery Thursday night, and moved the remaining items off the floor, expecting flooding, but not such heavy damage. “We just weren’t prepared to take everything,” Coats said. “I lost everything.” Coats was able to smile, a little, as she recalled one sign that survived the tsunami. It read: “Keep calm and carry on.” She’ll be able to do that, she said, noting that she’d created everything in the gallery and would be able to do so again. “This is epic,” she added. “Nobody expected this.” Stephens Media contributed to this story continued from page 1a Most of the damage incurred was to homes fronting Manini Beach, Morris said. No injuries were reported, he added. One home, a blue-colored, two-story structure situated on the south side of the bay, was lifted off its foundation and swept into the bay following several waves. Shortly after 11 a.m., just the roof remained exposed, floating along the bay’s northern shore. Other homes were lifted from their foundations, moved 50 feet or more inland or were twisted around before coming to a rest. The original Kahikolu Congregational Church, which is no longer used because a new facility exists on Napoopoo Road, was damaged with the majority of its makai wall washed away. One Kealakekua Bay resident, Shane Palacat, said he was evacuated prior to the waves arriving, however, he was able to see some of the action that took place at daybreak. “The surge that came went up under my house, and under the neighbors’ home behind me, about 50 yards inland,” said Palacat. “It lifted an entire house, the blue one, completely intact and left it floating in the ocean.” Damage to Napoopoo Landing didn’t appear to be extensive, however, the surges did move a sign with its cement base inland about 20 feet. The water also eroded a 5-foot hole near the landing. Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation Hawaii District Manager Nancy Murphy said she was unable to comment regarding harbor damage because crews were still assessing facilities around the island. However, Honokohau Small Boat Harbor was relatively unscathed, she said. Boat ramps appeared to have survived the surges, but one boat sunk within the harbor, she said. Kailua Pier appeared to have fared OK, too, Murphy said, and added that a vehicle parked on the pier was destroyed. Murphy, who was at the harbor early Friday, was unable to be reached for subsequent comment as of press time. Derek Inoshita, speaking on behalf of the Hawaii Department of Transportation, said no damage was reported at West Hawaii harbors. Kawaihae Harbor remained open as of press time, he said. Several people, who had been at Honokohau Small Boat Harbor since about daybreak, described a small fishing boat sinking on the southern side of the harbor at about 7 a.m. Kailua-Kona resident and boat captain Robert Bean said when the ocean withdrew from the harbor, the boat was lowered several feet. When the surge rushed in, the boat was apparently stuck below the dock, causing it to fill with water and sink. By 10 a.m., just the top of the boat and the tips of several fishing poles were visible. The tsunami also damaged buildings on the makai side of the harbor, he said. When the surge came in, water was half-way up the buildings, Bean said. tsunami: Most of the damage incurred was to homes fronting Manini Beach continued from page 1a brendan Shriane | west Hawaii today Championship triathlon and the HIBT billfish tournament lies on a walkway along Alii Drive near Kailua Pier Friday afternoon following a tsunami that destroyed much of the sea wall and damaged businesses in the area. randy wrighthouSe | west Hawaii today Maintenance crews work to clean up Alii Drive following a tsunami Friday. For more photos of West Hawaii tsunami damage, or to share your photos, visit westhawaiitoday.com Tsunami VOL. 43, NO. 71 22 Pages saturday, march 12, 2011 wesThawaiiToday.com 50¢ 7 0 58551 00780 hi 84 lo 72 page 2a Annie’s Mailbox . . . . . . .11A Business . . . . . . . . . . . . .11A Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12A Nation & World . . . . . . . .3A By MALCOLM FOSTER The AssociATed Press TOKYO — For more than two terrifying, seemingly endless minutes Friday, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan shook apart homes and buildings, cracked open highways and unnerved even those who have learned to live with swaying skyscrapers. Then came a devastating tsunami that slammed into northeastern hundreds Japan and killed of people. The violent wall of water swept away houses, cars and ships. Fires burned out of control. Power to cooling systems at two nuclear power plants was knocked out, forcing thousands of nearby residents to be evacuated. A boat was caught in the vortex of a whirlpool at sea. The death toll rose steadily throughout the day, but the true extent of the disaster was not known because roads to the worst-hit areas were washed away or blocked by debris and airports were closed. After dawn Saturday, the scale of destruction became clearer. Aerial scenes of the town of Ofunato showed homes and REEd FLiCkiNgER | wesT hAwAii TodAy ABOVE: Debris and broken pavement clutter Alii Drive adjacent to the pier in Kailua-Kona in the aftermath of a tsunami early Friday morning. TOP: The ocean recedes at Kailua Pier Friday morning during the tsunami generated by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake in japan. By ERiN MiLLER wesT hAwAii TodAy emiller@westhawaiitoday.com Three- to four-foot waves, generated by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan, left Kailua Village and parts of West Hawaii in shambles Friday. The first wave hit Kawaihae at 3:32 a.m., Pacific Tsunami Warning Center’s Charles McCreery said. The center does not keep gauges in Kailua Bay or Kealakekua Bay, he added, so he was unable to provide times or wave heights for those locations. see jApAN PAge 5A see TSuNAMi PAge 4A Chairs and tables were washed from the Kona Inn floor early Friday morning, left piled in the restaurant’s southwestern corner following the tsunami that surged through the state. ERiN MiLLER wesT hAwAii TodAy Tsunami destroys homes along Kealakekua Bay Judge finds enough probable cause to send charge to circuit court
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