Shaka, rattle and roll

Earlier this month, it was reported that a couple of minor earthquakes hit Nevada, which should come as no surprise to many considering our proximity to the San Andreas Fault.

But on Oct. 15, 2006, I earned a much greater respect for earthquakes, tremors, temblors or whatever word you prefer. The recent Nevada quakes made me think of that day while living on the Big Island of Hawaii.

It was a Sunday morning, 7:07 a.m. to be exact, when a 6.7-magnitude earthquake hit just off the island. Needless to say, that is not a fun wake-up call. My roommate and I came out of our rooms and within a few minutes Mother Nature decided to test our nerves a second time with a 6.0 shaker. It was later determined that it was a separate earthquake and not simply an aftershock.

Your mind races for what seems to be minutes instead of seconds since you can’t see an earthquake other than the destruction it leaves behind. I was trying to remember what we were taught in elementary school. Do I stand under a doorway? Maybe. Do I get in the bathtub? No, that’s for a tornado. Do I go outside? Probably not. A lot runs through your mind when your entire house is shaking back and forth.

After the second quake hit, my roommate and I assessed the damage. The biggest was that our entire kitchen cupboard came off the wall, destroying everything in it. The oddest damage was my shot glass display rack on the wall. Because of the type of shaking, the glasses didn’t simply fall out and onto the carpeted floor, where most probably could have survived. Instead, they all fell straight down along the wall, smashing each one as they landed. I lost about 30 of them as all that was left was a 4-inch pile of glass along the floorboard.

After checking out the damage, I called my girlfriend, who later became my wife, to see if she was OK. She was. Then, I put on my proverbial reporter hat and hit the road to the northern part of the island, which was my coverage area of the weekly paper I was editor of. It was about a 30-minute drive but made longer because of the number of boulders of various sizes in the roadway.

It was like I was playing a game of Frogger as I went back and forth between the two lanes.

I got to my office, checked the damage there and then started driving around, taking pictures and talking with people. Longtime residents were used to the threat of other natural disasters while living on a big rock in the middle of the ocean like hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfires and the occasional tornado. But few could remember earthquakes like the two that day.

Someone mentioned the damage of a nearby liquor store. There, I saw the owner attempting the clean up as nearly every bottle on his shelves crashed to the floor, leaving a small river of wine and other alcohol running out the doorway.

A major coastline bridge connecting the northern-most communities to the rest of the island was severely damaged. Luckily, residents still had access via a roadway through the middle of the island. Along the main highway, there were large construction equipment operators out moving chunks of the roadside mountain, one of which was larger than a car.

If a pair of earthquakes were going to hit, they did so at almost the perfect time. I know that sounds odd but here’s why. First off, it was a Sunday, so schools were not in session. That next day I went to an elementary school and was shown a classroom with one of those long, old-school banks of fluorescent lights, about 8 feet long, that fell on a row of desks. In that same classroom, there was an electric clock on the wall, frozen at 7:07.

Because it was a Sunday at 7 a.m., very few residents or tourists were on that same roadway where the car-sized chunk of mountain came rolling down or where landslides covered popular attractions or beaches.

In the town of Kohala, there was a popular church that was over 150 years old. Yes, it was a Sunday, but just two hours later, that church would have been filled with parishioners. One entire wall, made of stone, caved in on the pews. Thankfully, empty pews.

If I recall, while there was more than $200 million in damage, but thankfully there were no lives lost and very few who reported any injuries.

I know the 2006 Hawaii quakes pale in comparison to those in California or the 2011 one in Japan. I also covered the ensuing tsunami from that earthquake and the impact it had on the Big Island, but that story is for another day.

So, let’s hope Mother Nature spares Nevada from any larger earthquakes in the future because let me tell you, they are not fun. Shakas are far better than shakes.