May 23, 2004
The Day That Time Stood Still.
Along Kamehameha Highway near the intersection of route 11 and Kam ave by the airport, and next to the golf course at the Naniloa golf course, is an old lampost clock. It looks like new, but the hands are fixed at 1:04am. This clock was one of the few things that were still attached to the ground at Hilo's Ground Zero, where the great tsunami of 1960 struck. It is maintained as a memorial, to those who lost their lives and to the loss the community suffered.
Today marks the 44th anniversary of this seminal event. Hilo is still struggling with the aftermath of this disaster. Few new buildings have been built on the bay front since then. The Shinmachi neighborhood was washed out to sea, never rebuilt and is now a huge park and ball fields...The affordable housing that was there was lost forever, the housing stocks have never recovered to the level per capita that the were prior to the Tsunami. Unlike most shore communities we have no receational facilities on our waterfront. The insurance issues and well founded fears of a future event, make it impossible to take advantage of the gorgeous bay and develope recreational facilities...This limites the revenues that can be gathered from these sorts of activities and hurts the city in the pocketbook. and so it goes...
Tsunami story here I dont place it here on the blog as there are photos attached that are good to see...
The Pacific Tsunami Meseum has a lot of great infor and photos. This was an amazing event, and the pics are great.
Cant type much more, and may be off for a few days as my left hand and its Carpal tunnel is so bad that my middle finger feels like its being electricuted, Sore as heck. I can hardly type.
Store is doing fine and we may go in on Sunday as we have three ships in and perhaps few shops open. Will be like shooting fish in a barrel maybe????? We shall see.
