Tsunami ROUND 2

Good food storage eh???.....haha

Welp... I guess i better tell everyone that we are still alive! :) I would like to thank everyone who prayed for us, and called to make sure we were doing ok! We do live right on the coast, so it is pretty scary, but our apartment luckily, is on higher ground.

I will start off with a little comparison. Last year.. at the end of February after we had been in Hawaii for just 4 short weeks, and this same TSUNAMI thing happened to us. We were woken up in the middle of the night by neighbors, as the evacuation sirens were sounding. Coming from ARIZONA where almost NOOOOO natural disasters occur..aka"dry landers" we had no idea what to do. In fact, i can remember not even knowing what a Tsunami was. We or should i say "I" packed our entire house in panic. We fit all we could into our little car..and put the rest up high. We also left our home to drive more inland. This was an aftermath of the earthquake that hit Chile last year. After the matter, we asked "HOW OFTEN DOES THIS HAPPEN IN HAWAII?" and we were told by a few locals, "OH DONT YOU WORRY..ONLY ABOUT ONCE EVERY 8-10 YEARS." ... I can remember thinking.. Sweet, we will be safe. haha

NOT!! ROUND 2 started in March 11' exactly one year and one month later...

This year... an EVEN bigger earthquake hits JAPAN which is a little bit closer to us than Chile. We had plenty of time to evacuate again, this year. We were on watch until about 10pm our time, and then evacuation started. We knelt in prayer with our neighbors, and asked the lord to be with those in Japan, and also asked him for guidance on what we should do. After prayer, we all felt comforted, and like we would be ok staying in our home. We filled our bathtub with water, and almost every cup in the house. We LUCKILY had a full pantry and tank of gas. Heavenly Father really looked out for us this time, but next time...ill stick to having Huston and Kilie's 72 hour kit packed(done the day after TSUNAMI) so now we are prepared for the next one...which hopefully there wont be another one. At about midnight we drove our car up to the temple to be on higher ground just in case, and then we came back to our home to watch the news. Our hearts were broken for those in Japan....and we got a little more nervous as the water in our area started to recede. (Research Tsunami if you dont quite understand) ... I fell asleep at around 3pm after the Tsunami had not yet reached us.. but Huston stayed up to make sure our family was safe. At about 5pm when nothing had happened except the rise of the shoreline, he went to bed. the next morning.. it was as though nothing ever happened except all the tiredness and grumpiness had not yet worn off... but we were both back to work and school for the day.

All i can say is that we got lucky this time. Oahu was supposed to be the first island hit, but somehow, Maui, and the Big Island had more reported damage than we did. There are reports of water going inland as far as 100 feet on the Big island, and a few injured in Maui.

Stay tuned for my next post on the importance of a 72 hour kit. :) and i will save you the tears from posting pictures/footage of Japan. it is pretty sad. I will soon post pictures of my bathtub full and all the water we filled up up though. I am pretty proud of myself for staying calm this time around.

Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing us, and keeping us safe and prepared. Please though, i dont think Mom Rainey can survive another one, so lets preserve the earth for another 2 years or so until we get away from the OCEAN.

My heart goes out to families in Japan who lost everything they have including loved ones. My prayers will be with you.

Mahalo.