1st Lt. Barbara Cooper
Interim Public Affairs Officer
Hawaii Wing
HAWAII – Hawaii Wing members stood ready to respond Tuesday after the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued its first tsunami bulletin at 8:06 a.m. local time, notifying the public of a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific’s Samoa Island region and the resulting potential for a tsunami to be generated.
Simultaneously, Hawaii Civil Defense sent out automated cell phone voice and text messages to select alert team personnel -- including the wing’s director of operations, Capt. Anthony Ferrara, and its squadron commanders.
At 8:59 a.m. a second bulletin was issued declaring a tsunami warning and watch in effect, with an estimated time of arrival of 1:11 p.m. for Hawaii if an actual tsunami had been generated. In the meantime, the magnitude of the earthquake had been upgraded to an 8.3.
Civil Air Patrol members were notified by Civil Defense to stand by for possible deployment to fly their designated tsunami routes around the islands to look for anybody on or near the shoreline and broadcast a warning about the impending danger through a speaker sound system attached to the outside lower portion of their plane’s fuselage.
A third bulletin issued at 10:34 a.m. said sea level readings indicated a tsunami had indeed been generated. Water buoys in Pago Pago showed an increased water height of 5.1 ft.
The Hawaii Department of Emergency Management sent out warnings to the public to stay out of the water and away from shorelines. Lifeguards, firefighters and police were dispatched to local beaches to explain notify beachgoers that the advisory was in effect.
At that point, seven of the nine Hawaii Wing aircraft stood ready for deployment.
At 11:38 a.m., however, a fourth and final bulletin was issued canceling the tsunami warning and watch.
“If we had been notified to deploy, I feel we would have been very successful in our endeavor,” said Ferrara, who served as incident commander.
“The time of day was good, the weather was good and we had available CAP personnel and aircraft ready to go.
“We were lucky to have the time needed to prepare for whatever might hit, unlike those living in American Samoa, who were devastated by an immediate inundation from the tsunami waves,” he said.
“We do our best to live up to the CAP motto, ‘Semper Vigilans’ – Always Vigilant … to be always ready whenever needed – as it is only a matter of time before the next earthquake and tsunami will hit!”
