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1995 Second Place Winner
Story by Aaron Gumbs
Interviewee: Fusayo Ito
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Fusaya Ito
As soon as the warning came of Sunday May 22, 1960, Mrs. Fusayo Ito′s daughter called and begged her to come to her home in Kaiwiki. Don′t worry she said, look what happen in 1946, we evacuated our apartment upstairs of the Mukai building on Kamehameha Avenue, and along with a lot of Waiakea Town folks, we came to the exact spot where my house is now, and nothing happened to us. Her daughter begged her over and over, but she told her not to worry.
As it got closer to the estimated arrival time of the tsunami, Mrs. Ito went to her parlor door, overlooking her veranda. She watched as most of her neighbors went down to the Wailoa canal to wait for the arrival of the tsunami. She could see the canal and the ocean from her doorway, so she waited up to see what news they would bring back.
Some time after midnight they started coming back. Its all over some of them said. Almost immediately, she heard a tremendous explosion and as the sky was lighted up by the explosion everything went pitch black. In the same instance, her veranda was washed away, and she was overcome by a wall of water. After being tossed about the house, the floor gave away, and she felt herself falling. She tried to climb back up, but everything started caving in on her and she blacked out.
When she came to, she opened her eyes and thought she was still in her house. When she saw all the stars in the clear night sky she realized what had happened and started crying. She was surrounded by wreckage, and couldn′t even see the water, so she thought she could walk to dry land. She tried to stand up but the water was so deep that she couldn′t find the bottom even though she was over land. Suddenly the water started rushing back towards the bay, and she distinctly remembers seeing the tops of the two pine trees by Cow Palace as she was carried along by the receding water. She ended up below the Wainaku Sugar Mill. She doesn′t know how many times she was washed in and out, but she remembers seeing the wharf. She knew it was the wharf, because someone had abandoned their car with the lights still on.
Somehow she was carried beyond the breakwater and could see the lighthouse. At one time she saw a beautiful caravan of car headlights heading towards Hilo from Hamakua. Knowing she couldn′t swim, she prayed for her daughter and decided that she would never see her or any of her family and friends again. Afterwards, she was totally at peace, and started looking around. She suddenly realized that all she could see was sea and skies. The ocean as far as she could see was all clear. She saw at least one airplane fly over, but was so weak she couldn′t even raise her hand.
To make matters worse, the frame around the screen that she was handing on to was falling apart. To avoid putting too much weight on it, she had to submerge herself with only her head above water. She was sick from swallowing sea water, but she later learned that it had helped her to throw out all the gasoline and dirty water which she had swallowed during her unusual journey to the sea. Her eyes were so sore from exposure to the sea water, gasoline and the dirty water, that she could hardly keep them open.
As the day got brighter, she was startled by two huge white waves and what looked like a submarine racing straight towards her. She thought she heard splashes, and only then did she realize that someone had found her. Hanging on to her makeshift raft had drained her, and she went into shock, and couldn′t help the coast guards men who were struggling to get her into the boat.
An ambulance took her to the hospital, but she was to endure many more months of nightmares. Even her stay in the hospital was torture, for the crashing water of Rainbow Falls forced them to move her to the opposite end of the hospital, where she could no longer hear it.
Mrs. Ito gets all choked up when she says that she can′t say in words how thankful she is to be alive today Okagesama, Kamesama and all the Hotokesama were with her.
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All materials © Copyright 1996-2007 Pacific Tsunami Museum Inc.
130 Kamehameha Ave Hilo, HI 96720 tel: 808-935-0926 FAX: 808-935-0842
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Last Revised November 2007
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