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A Serendipitous Tsunami Story

On Wednesday, October 13, 1999, Glenn and Teresa Murakami of Thousand Oaks, California came into the Pacific Tsunami Museum at 3:55 p.m. Because the museum closes as 4:00 p.m., staff contemplated whether to inform them of the closing time. Upon greeting the couple, the staff discovered that Glenn's father had been washed out to sea at Laupahoehoe during the tsunami on the morning of April 1, 1946. He was rescued hours later by a ship. Employees gave Glenn and Teresa the full museum experience. Pictures from the Museum's archives of such a sea rescue were brought for the couple to view. However, the notation on the back of the photo said it was the rescue of a woman. Therefore, we concluded that the person in the photo was not Yoshikazu Murakami, Glenn's father. Glenn said his father never talked about this experience but did share a little last year when the family came back to the islands for a visit. He said his father, who was thirteen years old, told of how he drifted out to the Kohala coast and doesn't remember much because he had passed out.

The following Monday, Volunteer docent Sadao Aoki, who was also a Laupahoehoe thirteen year old in 1946, confirmed that there were two persons rescued at sea that day, a Mrs. Akiona and Yoshikazu Murakami.

On Thursday, October 21, 1999, David and Kathryn Cook, a couple on the inter-island cruise ship the Independence came into the Museum in the afternoon. During introductions, he informed us that he had been aboard the LST 731 that rescued several persons on April 1, 1946 off of the Kohala coast. The first person to be picked up was a lady floating on a door. Later, they found a boy floating on a raft. Because of the sea conditions, the captain said they could only make one pass to get to the boy. When they successfully reached him, David was the sailor who went down to the raft to reach the unconscious boy. In looking at the pictures from the archives, David Cook said that they most definitely were those of the rescue of Yoshikazu Murakami. David remembered the rescue vividly, and the photo distinctly shows the raft.

The intertwining of these lives, after all these years, borders on the supernatural. All of these lives came to pass through Hilo in the span of one week, with the Museum in their itinerary, making this a very special story. Through the Museum, David and Yoshikazu were united, and Yoshikazu was able to thank David for his life. The Museum is privileged to have been a part of that story.