People had hours before the tsunami hit Hawaii. How they spent it worsened evacuation gridlock

HONOLULU (AP) — David Sun-Miyashiro was at home on the 31st floor of a Honolulu apartment building, high above danger, when his phone alerted him to a possible tsunami from a massive earthquake far across the Pacific Ocean.

With plenty of time to spare before any surging waters might possibly reach Hawaii, he did something he probably wouldn’t have done in a more urgent scenario: He got in his car to go pick up his father, who would be needing a ride to the airport later.

He didn’t get far. Traffic in his neighborhood, Kakaako, was gridlocked. Sun-Miyashiro spent an hour going a few blocks, decided to turn around and finally abandoned his car, walking home with his preschool-age son.

The tsunami from the 8.8 magnitude quake that struck off a Russian peninsula ended up causing little damage across the ocean, but it revealed a few issues with evacuation plans that officials say they could improve.

Chief among them was traffic. The earthquake’s timing — during the afternoon rush hour — and the several hours of warning afforded by its distance helped make for severe congestion in some areas, complicating evacuation efforts that otherwise went smoothly.

“It was definitely a bit of a wake-up call to me that in these very kind of dense areas with a lot of population, it works OK as long as everybody doesn’t need to go into the car all at once,” Sun-Miyashiro said. “If that happens, you’re pretty much paralyzed in place.”

‘Over-evacuation’ was an issue, officials say

A few tourists left for higher ground rather than shelter on upper floors of hotels as called for in evacuation plans. Some residents headed to stores for supplies, and many headed home after work to gather items or meet up with family members before evacuating.

Additionally, some residents may have been confused about whether they really needed to evacuate, said Molly Pierce, spokesperson for the Oahu Department of Emergency Management.

There are standard tsunami evacuation zones, as well as zones for “extreme” tsunamis. Tuesday’s was a standard evacuation; some residents who live in “extreme” tsunami zones may have fled as well, even though they were already in safe areas, she said.

No need to hit Costco

Ed Sniffen, director of the state Department of Transportation, said Wednesday he doesn’t regret giving the public as much advance warning as possible. But next time, he would like to provide more education about how people should manage that time.

“That additional time, everybody tried to fill it. As soon as many heard about the event coming through, they tried to leave as soon as possible,” he said. “In other areas, people who were in safe zones, left those safe zones to go fill gas, went to go buy stuff from Costco or Safeway.”

It would have been more efficient for people to stay put if they were in a safe location, leaving the roads to those who needed to leave inundation zones, “and then make their way home in 20 minutes versus 2 1/2 hours.”

The state should also do a better job informing tourists that another option is simply to walk inland to higher ground, he said.

State Rep. Adrian Tam, who chairs the House Tourism Committee, said he was concerned about the gridlock in Waikiki, a legendary beachfront neighborhood that’s highly popular with tourists and which has only four roads in and out. He called it “a warning sign for the state and the city to look at ways to make things a little bit more organized.”

“I’m grateful that it wasn’t as serious as it could have been,” Tam said. “It does raise serious questions about how are we going to address massive gridlock.”

Hawaii usually has plenty of warning before tsunamis strike

Hawaii does not sit near the edge of a tectonic plate, but in the middle of the Pacific Plate. The major earthquakes that strike the state typically involve the weight of the still-growing volcanic islands bending and stressing the Earth’s crust and upper mantle. Rarely are those strong enough to cause a large tsunami, though a magnitude 7.2 quake in 1975 generated a tsunami that killed two campers on the Big Island.

The tsunamis that reach Hawaii usually arise from far-off earthquakes around the Ring of Fire — including in Japan, Alaska and Chile — and provide hours of lead time for evacuations.

On Tuesday, officials also took heed from the devastating wildfire in Lahaina, ensuring that a military road from Oahu’s Waianae Coast to the center of the island was open. A private road on Maui — commonly known as “Oprah’s Road” because Oprah Winfrey has an easement to use it — was also open for any evacuees who needed it.

‘I didn’t hear a car horn honk’

Jake Bacon, a freelance photographer from Arizona, was vacationing with his family at Bellows Air Force Station, a military recreation area on Oahu, when a security officer knocked on the door of their oceanfront cabin with instructions to evacuate to a military hospital partway across the island. It took him about 90 minutes to reach the hospital in traffic, and the family eventually wound up spending the night in a Safeway parking lot, where they had access to food and a restroom.

Still, he was struck by how orderly the evacuation was, especially compared to wildfire evacuations he’s witnessed.

“I didn’t hear a car horn honk,” Bacon said.

“Maybe a wave coming that’s not gonna be here for two hours is different than seeing the mountain on fire and knowing that it’s coming and worrying that you’re gonna lose everything you own,” he added. “But everybody just sat patiently and moved through traffic. Everybody acted in a way that just seemed, you know, how you would want it to be.”

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Johnson reported from Seattle.