by Barbara Palaith-Newson

Created on: March 12, 2007   Last Updated: May 12, 2007

It was early Sunday, October 15. Time was roughly 7:05am and I was asleep in my metal frame bunkbed on the second floor of a two story townhome in Ewa Beach, Oahu,HI. The newly risen sun shown through the window over my bed. I awoke to hearing a noise I can best describe as the sound of a roller coaster going through my room and the metal framed bed shaking. I woke up fast and ran down to my daughters room, who also was awake from it and wondering what was going on. I suddenly questioned myself, "Do we stay up here or do we go downstairs?" There is a very real threat of Tsunami here as well as earthquakes. So, the question was hard answered and remaining upstairs at the moment won out.

Around 7:15 we moved downstairs and turned on the news. It confirmed what we had guessed that it was an earthquake. About 10 minutes later we lost all power. Oahu had totally lost all its power stations.

We operated off a coleman stove and battery radio for 26 hours. Our area was the last to get its power back. The good news not a one fatality in all the islands.

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