- The Vaughn couple and William Steele shared their experience in Hawaii during Tuesday's tsunami event.
- Steele said during the wait after evacuating the coast, everyone was a family, and there was no panic.
- Steele and the Vaughns praised the communication and alert system, expressing gratitude for the safety they felt.
SALT LAKE CITY — Hawaii's tsunami advisory has been lifted after people on the island watched and waited for the past 24 hours. Those on Oahu were evacuated ahead of the first expected wave.
Tuesday evening, sirens were heard across Oahu with alerts calling for people to get to higher ground. For two Utah families and hundreds more, that place was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Laie Temple.
Utah residents Kambri and Harrison Vaughn had just arrived in Hawaii for a family trip. Their Airbnb was along the coast, when a neighbor came to check on them.
"She's gotten warnings about tsunamis, but this was the first one that felt like something was actually going to happen," Harrison Vaughn said.
The couple evacuated to a place called Temple Hill, right above the Laie Temple, with others from the community.
"Everybody was family … and we're all sharing food and goodies, and stuff like that," William Steele, another Utah resident on Oahu at this time, said. "It was no panic at all; everybody just seemed like it was, sort of, like, a large party."
Seismologist Emily Morton with the University of Utah Seismograph Station said the tsunami stemmed from an 8.8-magnitude earthquake that hit off the coast of Russia and its aftershocks.
"The Pacific oceanic plate is going beneath the continental plate that Russia is on," Morton said. "So, this is where we see the biggest earthquakes."
Morton said they projected waves hitting Hawaii to be smaller, but powerful and reoccurring.
"It actually is pulsing for hours," Morton said.
And so, those on the island waited hours on Temple Hill. Missionaries with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints started singing around 9 p.m.
"It just brought a lot of peace to see all the missionaries up there with their faith and just singing, and it was really, really powerful actually," Kambri Vaughn said.
Both Utah families emphasized how good the communication and alert system was. They received updates every hour and knew exactly what to do. They both said they are grateful for the safety they felt.
Contributing: Devin Oldroyd
