I'm curious to know if your evac/ bug out plans worked, how long it took you to get there, and what you think you could improve on to make it faster.

For me, I think I did well, I got the call at 4 so I had time to load my 30 day supply, my bug out gear, and alert my neighbors when I was done. I woke my wife at 4.30, and she had her and our son ready to go at 4.45. I think if need be I could have woke her earlier, and we would have left earlier, though I didnt feel the need to rush. We got to our 'staging area' at 5, with no stops along the way. We could have been faster on loading up, but I still happy about having everything we needed in our home. You wont see us bugging out to wal-mart!!

Glad to hear that everything was safe and I;m relieved this was just a drill/dress rehersal, but I was kinda hoping we would see a wave or two.

Not so much bugged out, but bugged in today. 

6:00am  Me in the morning "Is that the fridge making that weird noise?"  For some reason, the local siren wasn't working, but a distant one was. 
6:20am  Check online newspaper.  Then it dawns on me that that weird noise was, in fact, the sirens.
6:22am  Wake up wife and inform her not to go into work today.
Then it was a blur.  Recharged batteries, cooked extra rice, filled some 5gal food grade buckets with water for non-cooking use.  Got out the battery operated radio in case.  After an hour, I cooked breakfast and watched on tv how the unprepared have converged at wal-mart, foodmart etc.  Then it was normal Saturday chores until "splash down".

In retrospect, a scanner would be nice.  Listening to the callers on KSSK was downright irritating.  Can't hurt to have more water either.

Here's a tidbit for you...according to the news, if the wastewater pumps become in-op due to flooding, it may take weeks for them to get back to normal operations.  Meaning...overflowing sewers and possibly restrictions on wastewater (toilet and bathing). 

it looks like we are the only 'preparers' on this board  you must live on a hill since you were bugged in !!

My place is up on the mountainside so there wasn't really much to do.   In the event of a hurricane I would probably just bunker down at home seeing as I live in a concrete building. 

I live further up as well. Everything we needed, we had already bought in advance. Water, food, defense, etc...

The great thing about this tsunami was that we had notice 15 hours ahead of time. I feel really sorry for the people that felt like they had to go out and get gas in the morning. That musta sucked.

We were bugging out when we found out were outside the danger area for a tsunami, so we bugged in. The hardest part of packing was guns & ammo. If it's just a 1' wave like had, folks wouldn't like to have armed folks. But if it had been a really bad one, I wonder how much like Haiti it wouldve gone ... lootin, riots, violence ... in which case being armed is wise.

I have been re-thinking my gear and what to bring. How to stage it so they are in layers...as in shelter in place/bugout with vehicle/bugout on foot.
I am leaning to changing some of my gear to luggage that has wheels. The wheels make it easier to traverse on foot and carry larger loads. Bugging out in the bush is not practical for me and Oahu in general.

any thoughts or links?

I have been re-thinking my gear and what to bring. How to stage it so they are in layers...as in shelter in place/bugout with vehicle/bugout on foot.
I am leaning to changing some of my gear to luggage that has wheels. The wheels make it easier to traverse on foot and carry larger loads. Bugging out in the bush is not practical for me and Oahu in general.

any thoughts or links?

Last warning. We just stayed here. I went inside and put on the crossbreed with the .45 and just hung out. Had folks in the killzone come over and spend the night (yep, they brought nothing.)

Makes yah wonder!

Does anybody know what size tsunami the HI evacuation zones are based on?  They seem pretty small to me, like maybe they're based on what's likely to happen instead of a worst-case scenario.  OTOH, it may be that tsunamis don't get too huge in Hawaii, for the same reason that we don't have much tidal swing.

(For those who are curious, the tidal shift here is pretty small because the islands come up pretty abruptly from the ocean floor.  It goes from >12,000ft to the beach in a distance of just a few miles.  So the water doesn't come up as far as the mainland with the continental shelf.  Imagine sloshing water in a bowl, back and forth.  If you stick your finger in the center, the water just flows smoothly around without piling up, but you get huge variations on either side of the bowl because all the water is pushing the waterline higher until it all loses momentum.  So now you know that.) 

I think you're wise to think layered, and the 3 primary scenarios of staying in, leaving by vehicle, leaving by foot. I'd just use backpacks instead of wheeled luggage.Only problem I've found with wheeled luggage is the sidewalk/asphalt has to be like the lobby of a 5 star hotel in order for them to roll smoothly, otherwise they're wanting to flip over and you wind up dragging everything. I could see that for a short distance, like to a vehicle, but not for miles, particularly if your plan is to go up.

Cougar, that's some great info!

Right-o, old chap!   The problem is, I live outside the HI tsunami evacuation zone, but those evac zones are pretty narrow strips of land.  Hopefully the same principle applies to tsunamis as tidal changes, but I don't know for sure.  Obviously, it would be much easier to stay put, but I don't want to stay put and then find that my house has become a raft!  haha