Kevin Mihara's family lived right across the street from Waiakea Kai Elementary School in lovely, old Waiakea Town near Hilo. Although he admits his family was 'poor', the kids never noticed, because they made their own toys to play with. The children would often play near the Suisan Fish Market.
The Mihara home was on a brick foundation - raised. Later in life, Kevin found out that the house had been lifted off the foundation in the 1946 tsunami, and was subsequently moved from its original location near Suisan to the location by the school.
On May 22, 1960, Kevin was playing with some friends. One of them had a small radio. The kids heard the warning about the tsunami, and they went home to tell their parents, but their parents had been through evacuations before, and they figured they would just wait it out. The parents calmed the kids down for dinner and sleep.
Sometime after midnight the siren went off, and all of a sudden, everything started to happen. The Matsushitas were family friends of the Miharas, and Mr. Matsushita was a fisherman who owned a Sampan boat. He decided to take the boat out to sea to save it. Fortunately, Kevin's parents went to get the other members of the Matsushita family, whose house was located two blocks closer to the ocean than the Mihara house was.
Kevin was watching out the window of the front door, facing Suisan. As his parents came through the door with the Matsushitas, he remembers seeing what looked like a black curtain rise up against the background of the Hilo lights. He did not realize at the time that that was a wave. All of a sudden, sparks were flying as the power plant was hit. Kevin got so scared he became sick to his stomach. |
Just prior to the wave hitting, he saw people trying to evacuate in cars, people running, people climbing up trees. There was a big mango tree in the school yard across the street; quite a few people climbed up the tree for safety. Kevin remembers at least one car being caught in the wave, because after the wave struck, he heard the stuck horn blaring.
Everything was dark, and eventually the firemen came walking down the street checking to see if everybody was okay. The Mihara family left their house, finding their rubber slippers in front of the bathroom on the ground floor, covered with two to three inches of mud. They walked across the street through the schoolyard and into the school. There they met other people who had gone into the school for protection. The school had remained intact through the tsunami.
Once assembled, the group was escorted to the old Sure Save building. Kevin remembers that between that store and the service station next to it, there was a dirt road (paved today) where there was a big puddle with a huge barracuda fish flopping around.
Kevin's family went to stay at his grandmother's house close to Kapiolani Community College. Mr. Matsushita, the family friend who took the Sampan boat out to sea, returned to his neighborhood to find his house and vicinity destroyed. All he found was his refrigerator in the rubble. Thinking his family was lost, he was overwhelmed with grief, until somebody came across him and said, "Oh no, your family is okay, they got evacuated by friends." The fisherman re-joined his family at Kevin's grandmother's house and rejoiced with happiness!
People were kept out of the destruction zone for a number of days. Eventually, people who had lived in that area were allowed re-entry. He remembered seeing piles of rubble and wood, smashed buildings and cars, and dead fish.
Kevin's advice: If there is a tsunami warning "You got to get out of the area. I mean it..." |
