Life without electricity - Earthquake recovery

Thanks for the e-mail messages of concern. Yes, here in Hawaii we did have a pretty big Earthquake on Sunday morning around 7:10AM. It actually woke me up (something my mother used to claim required an atomic explosion). I live on Oahu which is at least 100 miles from the epicenter (and 3 islands away). It shook for about 30 seconds and actually increased in intensity towards the end. About 3 minutes later, Hawaiian Electric pulled the plug on our power. A minute after that we had another small tremor, but that was the last aftershock that I felt.

I went back to bed. I got back up around 9:30AM and the power was still out. The city was urging people just to stay home, but I was VERY bored and hungry. My roommate and I drove around a little in the middle of the afternoon. I understand why they were saying "stay home". With the traffic lights out everywhere if there had been much traffic, it would have been like a demolition derby.

Unfortunately, we did not get power back on until after dark that evening. I live up on a hill where I can see from Kahala, Diamond Head, Waikiki, and Downtown. It was VERY strange to look out and see just blackness last night (except for a few car lights.) Finally got e-mail connetivity re-established about 7:00AM this morning. Naturally, I was in withdrawl. :-)