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Breaking News
Earthquake Hits Hawaiian Islands
Aired October 15, 2006 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, thank you, Rianne for calling in and thank you for sending in those pictures.
RIANNE CAPRON, CAPTAIN COOK: You're most welcome. Thank you. And aloha.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aloha.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we've been trying all morning to try and get in touch with Daryl Huff who was at the airport. We're going to try again.
Gary, you got him?
GARY SPRINKLE, KITV: Yes I do have Daryl Huff who is at Honolulu National Airport with the first incoming passengers from Kona -- Daryl.
DARYL HUFF, KITV HONOLULU: Thanks Gary, we did talk to several people including one woman who had c-section and baby delivered last night. The baby was brought here to Kaiser (ph), she was supposed to stay in the hospital but the hospital ceiling or roof, she says, fell in and they all had to be evacuated. The patients were evacuated to the parking lots. They used firefighters and other personnel, and they had buses and so on. She managed to have her mom come and rescue her and bring her to Oahu. Luckily there was a wheelchair available for her when she got here.
They're all telling stories of the worst earthquake they've ever felt. Virtually everything unsecured would fall off of walls, and if it was breakable, it would break. The one pair tourists from Vancouver who were staying at the rather large resort, I want to be careful not to say the name of that resort yet, because they didn't quite have the name exactly, but it was a rather large resort. But, it was declared unsafe. There were broken pipes, flooding, cracks in the walls, the entire hotel was evacuated and declared unsafe. So, there's obviously considerable damage on the Kona side that's probably still being counted.
As far as getting around there, they have power, apparently, and quite a number of law enforcement personnel quickly out on the roads. People did not complain about feeling unsafe once things were out. The walls were falling, obviously buildings were heavily damaged and people got a pretty good scare -- Gary
SPRINKLE: Daryl, just one quick question. Did this woman that had her baby at North Kona Hospital, was she able to tell you more about what's going on there? Because we know that they evacuated most of that hospital.
HUFF: Pretty much what I've told you is what she said. She was in her room, she said the roof fell down around the doorway near where she was. She didn't see anybody injured.
And when people talk about their roof, they mean the ceilings, you know, the ceiling tiles, so I don't know whether they had structural roof collapse. It doesn't sound like that because I would thing there would be more injuries. It sounds more like there was considerable pieces from the ceiling that were falling down. Like she said, no one was hurt. They did evacuate the hospital very quickly, she said, though, in just a matter of a few minutes.
SPRINKLE: OK, Daryl, I know you have people to talk to, so thanks a lot and we'll talk to you later.
HUFF: Gary, just...
CAROL LIN, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: All right, we're just listening in to KITV, our CNN affiliate in Hawaii, and we're just getting the first early reports as people are able to get to phones, reporters out to the scene. We were just hearing a very dramatic description of what happened. It sounds like a hotel after the earthquake was hit, and a woman said -- well, she called it the roof, but he believed it was the ceiling she was talking about -- the ceiling was starting to come down around her.
We do know that people are arriving at local hospitals with broken bones, with lacerations, cuts -- lacerations, so far no reports of any deaths. But we're also getting reports in from our I-Reporters on the scene, just average citizens getting shots of the damage, and you're looking at a rock slide in Maui that Jerry Lab took. And you can see one of his neighbor's and also a friend posing behind this landslide. But, what a scenic paradise there and -- but just some of the damage from the 6.6 earthquake that struck almost to the minute eight hours -- seven hours ago in Hawaii.
It was only 7:00 in the morning and people are describing how -- one person was describing how he and his wife were taking a walk in the hotel and they passed a fishpond and all of the sudden did fish started jumping out of the water and that was before they felt the earth shake and the windows of their hotel rattling around them.
We have much more straight ahead including reports from our meteorologist, Rob Marciano, standing by at the CNN Weather Center.
Rob, you have talked with geologists, you've talked with experts, you know this region very well, and how active it is, the volcanoes and how earthquake prone this area really is.
ROB MARCIANO, METEOROLOGIST: They certainly are. They see quite a number of earth quakes just from -- because those islands are built by volcanoes, and as the magma flows underneath the islands and underneath those active volcanoes it does shake the earth typically near the base of those volcanoes, and most of them are occurred that way. But through talking with geologists, out of the University of Hawaii the past couple of hours, they point out a couple of interesting things and then just listening to some of their comments on our local affiliate coverage. This is not just your -- this is not your ordinary earthquake.
Couple things to point out on the big island here is Hilo is here to the east, Kona is to the west, the eastern side typically sees a little bit more rain -- a lot more rain than the western side. This area is where most of the active volcanoes are and a lot of lava flows in through this area. So, given that the earthquake itself this morning, was in this area. So what that tells the seismologists and geologists that this eruption, or I shouldn't say eruption, earthquake was due not so much from magma flowing underneath an active volcano, but from flexural bend of the earth's crust some 20 miles down.
And what happens as these islands continue to build, and that's what they do as these volcanoes erupt, they add mass and weight to the actual island. The way it was described to me is if you take a piece of plywood and span it across a cassm of some sort and pile rocks on top of that plywood it begins to bend and sometimes snap and that's the way this earthquake was -- what they're assuming. Now they've got to go through the data and shake this all out, but because it is in this particular location, that's what they're thinking at the moment.
What has kind of raised their eyebrows is the size or the magnitude of this earthquake at 6.6, that's far greater than any earthquake that they've seen since records have been kept in this area of Hawaii. The strongest one since this one was 4.8 in this area, so it certainly has them thinking wow, this is definitely interesting to say the least, and for folks who live right over the epicenter certainly damaging.
Good news with this particular earthquake. No tsunami generated. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center quickly put out a statement saying that there was -- there will be no threat of a tsunami, one because of the depth, two because of the strength, and three because of historically that kind of earthquake in this part of the world does not generate tsunamis unless it's actually strong enough to move the earth and slough off a piece of the island, say a part of a volcano or part of a -- some lava sloughed off into the ocean, that would cause a big wave, that would cause a local tsunami. And there's no indication of that happening, and because of the size and depth of it, there was no threat of a tsunami on the west coast of the U.S., Alaska, or South America.
But, the other issue is what you're seeing right now, Carol, is the rainfall. A tremendous amount of rain has fallen in the past month and a half across Honolulu. They will see rainfall tonight in through Maui, you'll see a little bit of rainfall tonight and tomorrow in the big island, all but the big island under a flash flood watch through tomorrow morning.
LIN: And we're also still just getting, Rob, some of the pictures of the damage. And watching our CNN affiliate KITV, they had a woman call in, and she actually sent the TV station a picture of their rock wall, and it looked like half of this thing just collapsed, and she said moments ago her husband was actually going out to get the mail, and a few minute later that whole rock wall just collapsed. I mean he could have been caught in that, so we are seeing, you know, some of the effects of this earthquake.
MARCIANO: Well, feeling the earth move under your feet certainly is a scary prospect, and folks who have lived through an earthquake know that feeling. You're absolutely helpless. And being outside doesn't necessarily mean you're safe. I mean, one of the safest spots would be in your home underneath the door wall or something like that.
LIN: You bet. One of the mayors that was talking with our local affiliate too, said it's his 40th wedding anniversary, and he and his wife were planning on going out tonight, but it looks like he's pretty busy trying to deal with his constituents, but he said it's not an anniversary they're likely to forget any time soon.
Rob, I have Terry Lewis on the telephone. She's with the Kona Community Hospital. This is a hospital that we had heard had been at least partially evacuated, it's a critical care hospital, there.
So, Terry, what happened? How are you're patients doing?
TERRY LEWIS, KONA COMMUNITY HOSPITAL: OK. They're doing very well. We're not a critical care in the sense that we're -- we take care of critically ill patients, so we're not a critical care hospital like a CA hospital, so we're an acute care hospital.
LIN: All right, but your patients, though, are suffering from chronic conditions and some of them may be in pretty bad shape.
LEWIS: Some of them. Some of them. Some of them.
LIN: So, how did the evacuation go?
LEWIS: We're still in process. We've gotten all of our long- term care patients down to the Sheraton Conference Center. And we had to move all of their beds and staff and everything went with them. So, they'll be staying down there. And then we will be transferring probably five patients now. We've been able to discharge some, but five acute care patients over to Hilo Medical Center via ambulance and a C-1 transport that will then fly them to Hilo.
LIN: Terry, it must have been terribly frightening for the staff there and these patients when the earthquake struck, so early in the morning. Can you give us an idea of what that experience was like and how the staff was able to respond?
LEWIS: Well, the staff is trained to respond to things like this. They're pretty remarkable. We have drills throughout the year to prepare ourselves for these kinds of things, and so the main thing is to keep calm, you know, and to keep our patients safe and make them feel -- you know, make them feel safe. So, you just do what you have to do, what you're trained to do, and they all did it.
LIN: You know, the drills really work because... LEWIS: They really do.
LIN: You don't have a 6.6 everyday. Why did they have to be evacuated, though? Is there something structurally unsound about the building right now?
LEWIS: No, no it's really just a mess. We have ceiling tiles coming down, and all of that stuff has to be repaired before we can, you know, place those patients back in those units.
LIN: Were you able to get a hold of their families so at least the families know what happened to them?
LEWIS: We are. We're doing that. It takes time, it takes time when you're an emergency situation like this. I mean, the first thing, you know, we think of to do is to make sure our patients are safe and then we get a hold of family members and...
LIN: Well, for the families who are watching right not, Terry, and they're watching nationwide as CNN has been carrying continuous coverage of the aftermath of this earthquake. Can you at least assure families that everybody is accounted for and safe?
LEWIS: Oh, definitely. Everyone is safe, everyone's OK, you know, if family members haven't been contacted yet, they will be in the very, very near future.
LIN: All right. Terry Lewis with the Kona Community Hospital, tough, tough job your staff had to do. Glad the patients are safe, glad everybody's accounted for. Appreciate the time. Take care out there.
LEWIS: Thank you.
LIN: All right, we're continuing with the coverage of the aftermath of the Hawaiian earthquake which struck a little after 7:00 in the morning Hawaiian time. We'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard this huge noise which was this thing falling, and, you know, all my family started coming out of the rooms because they were all asleep except me, so I came out here, and I could not believe this. And there was smoke everywhere I guess from the concrete and everything was filled with it, and the rooms are totally dusty with all the stuff.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN "Breaking News."
(END VIDEOTAPE) LIN: I'm Carol Lin. Welcome back to our continuing coverage of this breaking news story on the islands of Hawaii where the big island is under a state of emergency. Residents saying some neighborhoods look like a war zone, but no deaths or serious injuries to report to you. Hospitals, though, are receiving patients who have some cuts and broken bones. Emergency workers are saying please, stay off the roads, try to stay off the phone unless it's absolutely necessary. It is still a developing situation. They don't know the road and bridge conditions. It's a dangerous situation out there.
Now, CNN has been able to, throughout the afternoon, provide live continuing coverage in partnership with our Hawaiian affiliate KITV, so let's rejoin them right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Again, the threat of heavy showers slowly moving down the island chain to the island of Hawaii, so not good news there. But looks like the good news will be that the heavy shower activity will hold off until after sunset.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK thanks -- Justin.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, you know, we've been hearing from the Honolulu Board of Water Supply today about some cautions and water alerts from Oahu residents to conserve water. And right now we're going to hear from Antonio with the Board of Water Supply on the big island.
Antonio, any problems with the water supply there?
QUIRINO ANTONIO, BOARD OF WATER SUPPLY: We've had a few problems going on. Because of, mainly power blackouts and, you know -- because most of our (INAUDIBLE) pumps are obviously depending on the (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No major breaks or anything in lines or anything?
ANTONIO: We had a few small waterline breaks which we haven't got to fix yet. Mainly because our guys are out there, you know, investigating other -- or doing other more major fixes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Antonio, what areas of the island are without water at this hour?
ANTONIO: Currently the major area that we are experiencing real problems right now is in the area where the (INAUDIBLE) area, that's where the Monoloni (ph) Hotel the (INAUDIBLE) Beach Hotel area -- yeah? We had power out at our main well field in that area, which is the Lalamilo Well Field. Understand, however, (INAUDIBLE) was able to be hooked up to power, so shortly we should have water back into that system -- yeah?
The other major area that we were without power for a while was in the Waimea, the Pukapu (ph) Niahia (ph) water system which is basically fed from a booster pump from our Waimea clear water well -- yeah? Again, understandably the power just went back on, so it's a matter of time that we are storage reservoirs catch up on those -- yeah?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anything you want to let your residents know out there, any precautions or...
ANTONIO: Basically these kinds of situations, you know, our systems rely on (INAUDIBLE) power. And if the (INAUDIBLE) power is not that clean, I mean, if we have brownouts here and there, you know, just be careful, conserve on your water usage basically, you know, because you never know what will happen -- yeah?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much, Antonio.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you very much.
ANTONIO: You're welcome.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, and we're going to hear now from Gary Sprinkle down in the newsroom -- Gary.
SPRINKLE: Thanks, Paula. I've got Terry Lewis who is the public relations person with Kona Community Hospital on the phone, and as you know, we've reported most of the day that that hospital did sustain some damage, and at least some of the patients had to be evacuated. But, here's Terry Lewis to tell us more about what's going on right now.
Hi, Terry.
LEWIS: Hi, Gary. Yes, we are transporting some of our acute care patients to Hilo Medical Center in Hilo, and as we speak, they are going via ambulance to a C-1 transport at the airport and will be flown over to Hilo. We have transported our long-term care nursing home patients down to the Sheraton Kaho (ph) Conference Center where they will stay temporarily. And then we have kept our critically ill patients here as well as some of our behavioral health patients.
So, that's the update on the patients. Everyone is OK, everyone is safe, and for those family members that haven't been notified yet, you will be -- you know, we will be in contact with you if we haven't already very soon.
SPRINKLE: OK. Now, explain again where some of these patients are in a conference room and how well equipped...
LEWIS: A conference center. OK, these patients are nursing home patients, they're very stable patients, you know, their medical needs -- our staff will be with them, the beds were moved down with them as well. So, they will have all the equipment, all the staff, all their dietary needs -- all their needs will be met as they are here.
SPRINKLE: Terry, how many people are we talking about here? How many patients?
LEWIS: We have 30 patients that went down to the conference center.
SPRINKLE: OK. And from Honakaha (ph)?
LEWIS: I don't know the status on the Honakaha (ph) patients.
SPRINKLE: OK. Well let me ask you this, Terry, the damage sustained by the hospital, can you elaborate on that at all? Can you give us some details on that?
LEWIS: Well, there was no structural integrity, you know, our structural integrity is good. It was ceiling tiles that came down, things fell off the wall, we're, you know, checking our gas lines and the water supplies, things like that. So, you know, we feel pretty confident that, you know, we'll be up and running for business within a very short period of time. Our emergency room is fully operational at this point as well as our x-ray and labs. And we do have a room in our operating room that if we need to do emergency surgery, we're fully capable of doing that.
SPRINKLE: OK, Terry. Is there a phone number where family and friends can contact you or the hospital?
LEWIS: Yes. If they call 322-4565, if you have any questions about family members, but I do want to reiterate that everyone is safe, everyone is OK, and that if you can call immediate family because all immediate family has been contacted. If people can call immediate family members and get the status of those loved ones, they'll probably have that information for them.
SPRINKLE: OK. Thanks very much Terry Lewis the public relations director at Kona Community Hospital and we'll post that phone number for anybody, in fact we will post it on the Hawaiichannel.com. Paula and Sean (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gary, thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to let Maui residents know the (INAUDIBLE) shopping center is now open for business for those of you who are waiting for places to get supplies. (INAUDIBLE) shopping center is now open.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, now turning back to the island of Oahu, of course, power outage, the primary issue. Let's go back to Mahealni Richardson....who is live in Kahala with more.
Hi Mahea.
MAHEALNI RICHARDSON, KITV: Hi Sean and Paula, well because of that power outage people are trying to get supplies as quickly as possible, and of course, gas is a major concern. A lot of people are running out of gas, and so the lines here at the Shell station in Kahala have been very long. People have been reporting waiting in line anywhere from 15 minutes to half an hour, even to an hour, and actually at this point, tempers have been starting to flare, and that's because people are starting to cut in line.
And joining us now is Madeline. She's from the Shell station, here. People have been cutting in line, and it's actually making people upset, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. I was out pumping gas, and when the police officer asked me to come to the intersection and make sure that the traffic in this line goes straight and goes all the way around the block so they don't cut in, so we were just trying to get every customer in and out as quickly as possible.
RICHARDSON: Right, and Shell is...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tempers are up, though.
RICHARDSON: Yeah, tempers are definitely up because, hey, cutting in line, that's kind of cheating this situation. But actually, you know, the Shell station here is one of the few gas stations that's open because the owner has decided that he is going to have a generator here, and so that's why it's open.
But you can see that, you know, this employee here at Shell is having to move people all the way down this road because this is where -- kind of the area where they were cutting in, and Madeline, I have one more question for you. How much gas do you guys have? When are you going to run out?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I haven't checked it. We had enough to get through a normal day and probably more. We had a gas delivery coming tomorrow.
LIN: All right, live continuous coverage from the region with our affiliate. We're working on talking to people in the region ourselves. Continuing coverage, stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN "Breaking News."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the Hawaiian earthquake. I'm Carol Lin. We're bringing you pictures from around the region of the Hawaiian Islands as well as interviews and our local affiliate coverage. This is what we know so far in case you're just tuning in and learning about this massive earthquake. It measured 6.6 according to the U.S. Geological survey, and just a short time later that was an after shock of 5.8.
This earthquake striking very early in the morning, about 7:07 in the morning Local Time. It is about 2:30 in the afternoon there, right now. There are no fatalities reported. This quake actually was centered on the west side of the big island. Now, we are getting reports from hospitals around the region. Patients with broken bones, also with lacerations, heavy damage in some areas including the Kona community hospital which treats long- term care patients. They had to evacuate their facility because the ceiling tiles were falling off, and endangering patients, so they moved them to a convention site.
The power is still out mostly across the island of Oahu. At one point 95 percent of the power was out.
We're also getting pictures from our I-Reporters on the scene, so we appreciate it. We want those pictures to keep on coming. You're on the front lines of this story.
In the meantime, Rob Marciano also on the front lines talking with sources, a geologists, you've learned a lot about the volcanic activity in that area. Is there any danger that this earthquake might trigger even more volcanic activity?
MARCIANO: Well, that's not completely out of the question that's for sure. Geologists, unofficial word from a geologists I spoke to out of the University of Hawaii is that this quake, unlike most earthquakes around the Hawaiian Islands, is likely not due to magma that's flowing underneath the active volcanoes. Mostly because, you notice on that map, the quake itself is on the northwest side of the big island of Hawaii.
Most of the active volcanoes on that island are on the eastern side of the island. This is a closer shot for you with, again, the earthquake to the northwest side and most of the other -- most of the volcanoes are on this side of the island.
So that's what's going on with that. No tsunamis generated by this particular earthquake mostly because of the depth of the earthquake which was 24 miles deep, and the size, 6.6, typically you got to get at least a 7.0 magnitude earthquake to go and move some of that -- move some of the ground below the ocean surface to actually move the water, to generate that wave. And that was not the case with this particular earthquake, and shortly after the quake itself, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center put out a statement saying that there would not be a tsunami with this particular earthquake.
There is concern, though, with the amount of rain that's fallen across the island for the past month and a half they've seen 19 plus inches of rainfall in Honolulu, and you can see in that radar shot on my left there is more rain falling tonight. Although, according to this radar and according to the satellite pictures and according to the weather systems that are moving through the area, it looks like things are beginning to weaken. Nonetheless, a flash flood watch is up for most of the islands with the exception of the big island through tomorrow morning.
Now, Kona, which is very close to where this earthquake was centered, doesn't see a whole lot of rain. It's one of the sunniest places in the country. The flip side of things is on the other side, Hilo sees some of the most rain you'll ever see in one particular city -- over an inch of rain possibly. But the west side of the island is typically dry. There was a strong aftershock after the initial 6.6, it was 5.8, about seven minutes later. Since then we have seen 29 aftershocks most of which have been around the 3.0 magnitude range which is barely enough to even be felt at the surface. The most significant aftershock was 4.4 and that was about three hours ago. We really haven't seen any other aftershocks in the last three hours, Carol, so that's certainly good news for the folks across the big island -- Carol.
LIN: Thanks Rob.
MARCIANO: Sure.
LIN: In the meantime, we're getting live, real time, continuous coverage from from our Hawaiian affiliate KITV which has been doing a terrific job in talking to people who were eyewitnesses to this earthquake, talking about their stories of survival. Let's tune back in to the anchors at KITV.
AKANA: -- to (INAUDIBLE) bay, it was -- the bay was very dirty with a lot of mud and rock that -- debris that had apparently gone into it. So this may be one of those landslides.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not sure how extensive that landslide is, but there's a trail that goes out, there's a memorial to Captain Cook right on that point off there, so, who knows what has happened in that situation. Again, some more pictures from the big island.
AKANA: This is a house in Kona and some of the interior damage you can see in the kitchen area, the cabinets. As people were saying, a lot of shaking going on, a lot of glass all over the ground. Here it looks like trees and boulders that have come down on the side of -- this is from Maui from the Hana side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh it is from the Hana side of Maui, which we're being told is essentially cut off right now because of a bridge issue near mile post 26. I'm not sure if this is still in Hana, but this is another picture of some of the damage incurred. This is actually in Kona I'm being told, this picture right here with the car and the rocks.
AKANA: As you see, a lot of these pictures are just coming in from our viewers who are sending it in to thehawaiichannel.com. And you can see the poles down on this one in the -- I believe this is in the Kona area, the poles that are leaning. Oh these are some -- big, big rocks that have come down on the (INAUDIBLE) highway, boulders, huge ones, making that highway impassable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see some of the crews already out there. This is Hana, Maui, trying to take care of some of the rock slide issues there. Island (INAUDIBLE), the mayor of Maui told us that (INAUDIBLE) bay side park is where they had the primary rock slide issue. There was a bridge out, as we mentioned, near (INAUDIBLE) bridge which is near mile post 26. So they're working on clearing that up so they can gain access to Hana. AKANA: This is a picture from inside the Kona Hotel in one of the rooms there. That TV set has come off the stand and into the -- on to the floor of the room.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Again, this is a picture, I believe Bay Shore Drive. Is that in Kona, (INAUDIBLE)? I mean you can see the pole there kind of tilting right behind that traffic light.
AKANA: And then we go once again to some of the pictures of the road damage, there you see a fissure in the highway there. A lot of -- little fissures and what's being described as sink holes and boulders, a lot of basic infrastructure problems for the big island.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As we talk a look at some more of these pictures, we want to thank all of you who have sent these into the station at thehawaiichannel.com. You can see some of the residents there have put up this makeshift sign to warn people of dangerous road conditions. So we want to thank all of you, if you have any more pictures, please continue to send them in. This is a better picture I believe of that rock slide near (INAUDIBLE) Bay. You can see kind of the debris, the dust which was kicked up from this slide.
AKANA: You know, that's the one where our caller was saying that the water turned red and that's probably what she was seeing was that. Here's another part of the -- I believe this is somebody's foundation separating, their house separating from the foundation, kind of just looking down at a fissure that has come up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of reports of TVs falling over, things flying off the shelves because of the action of the earthquake. And you can see these are pictures from Kona of interiors of homes where the items have fallen off and toppled over. We spoke to this woman who told us about the rocks -- the wall there collapsing which blocked their driveway.
AKANA: And I'm not sure what this one -- it looks like we're seeing boulders that are strewn along in this open area here. We're not quite sure what this one is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We also had some damage in Mano(ph) here on the island of Oahu on Vancouver Drive.
AKANA: Yeah, this is a home that was built in 1912, on the historic registry we're told, and that was the outside -- three-story chimney basically that --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were saying that it was the second actual aftershock which caused that to tumble over, not the first initial one, but the family was quite shaken by this. They were in bed sleeping, and they have visitors from the mainland coming in from Colorado. You can see a picture from the upper floor of that home. But they are having it assessed right now to see if there's any structural damage and if the home is actually safe to occupy.
AKANA: See and we haven't heard a bunch of damage here on Oahu, but obviously this one, big damage. And as we heard from Ellen E. Richardson who was speaking to one of those customers at the Shell Station that he sees roof damage on his home and that his neighbor's home that was under construction looks like it had a lot of broken glass. So as the time goes on, we'll start hearing more of some of the damage outside of the big island.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. We've been very fortunate on the island of Oahu at least as far as we know that we've had very few reports of any injuries. We had one report early this morning of some people possibly with a broken leg, and this is in a store of some sort in Evaley(ph). We haven't heard much more than that other than just your basic scrapes and cuts and things of that nature.
AKANA: And right now we're going to talk to Dennis from the (INAUDIBLE) area on the big island of Hawaii. Dennis?
DENNIS MARTIN, KAMUELA: Hi, how are you guys doing?
AKANA: Pretty good, how are you guys doing.
MARTIN: Oh, well, we're holding up, we're holding up.
AKANA: What was it like this morning?
MARTIN: Well I actually -- I'm an associate pastor down at New Hope Church in Waikoloa and we gathered there for prayer this morning at 7:00 when the earthquake hit, and it was pretty strong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What else can you tell us, Dennis, as far as the congregation and the people coming there. Were you able to speak with anybody?
MARTIN: Actually we -- because it was so severe and everyone tried to call home and the phones weren't working, so we hall went home and tried to assess the damage. Most of the people, the congregation called, and I told them that they wouldn't have any church today to stay with their families and take care of their neighbors that have any damage, and I came home to my house in Kamuela and I found my home had been thrown off the foundation, and the main girders that hold my house up in the back had cracked and had -- my house -- the front part of my home had collapsed.
AKANA: Wow, no one was home at the time though?
MARTIN: My wife was actually in bed -- waking up to get ready for my daughter to come to church. They leave around 9:00 to come down, and our service starts at 10:00, so they were actually in bed getting ready when the earthquake hit.
AKANA: But they weren't hurt?
MARTIN: No, no. No one was injured, but my home was severely damaged. The front porch is actually sticking up, and my garage collapsed on itself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what's it like now there, Dennis, where you're at? MARTIN: Now, it's pretty quiet. The only thing we have now is peopling gawking, you know passing by and pointing and saying, wow, look at that house. And I wish they'd stay off the roads so the emergency personnel can do what they need done. And other than that it's pretty quiet. You know people have pretty much stayed off the roads so that the emergency personnel can do their jobs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, well, thank you very much for calling in, Dennis.
AKANA: Take care of yourself, Dennis. Good luck in the rebuilding.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hang in there, thank you.
MARTIN: I will.
LIN: You've been watching our CNN affiliate KITV on the island of Hawaii as they're broadcasting the conditions after this 6.6 earthquake which struck about 7 1/2 hours ago off the northwest coast of the big island of Hawaii. Coming up after a quick break we're going to introduce you to some people who survived this, and describe their experience in waking up in the middle of a massive earthquake. We've got airport conditions as well, so stay right there. We'll be right back.
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LIN: Welcome back. I'm Carol Lin and we're showing you a map of where a 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck early this morning in Hawaii about seven hours ago. It was a 6.6, and shortly after that an aftershock of 5.8 struck. This quake centered on the northwest side of the big island of Hawaii, and fortunately we're happy to tell you that so far no fatalities are reported. But at least one hospital had to be evacuated of its critical care patients, as ceiling tiles were raining down on them. It became an unsafe situation. People with broken bones and lacerations are walking into area hospitals to get treatment. Some of the roads, especially on the big island, may be impassable right now, so emergency crews are asking people to stay off the roads. Flights so far on a few of the airports are outbound, but the Honolulu International Airport still does not have flights leaving. They simply don't have enough electricity to operate the ticket machines or the jet ramps. Now we're also hearing from people who survived this quake, what they were doing when it hit and what they did afterwards.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kind of a rolling, not too violent but it lasted for like I said about 20 seconds. Woke me up, enough that I woke my girlfriend up and she didn't feel anything so she fell back asleep.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was the first thing that came to your mind when you felt this earthquake? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was in California for the big earthquake back in '89 so my first thought was I'm going to hear screaming and a lot of disaster, but it was pretty calm. People just waking up, so it was good.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So no panicking, just people are wondering what just happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that I probably panicked the most, because like I said, I've been in a big earthquake before, so. But other than that, everybody seemed very calm, laughing, joking.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The maids were passing these out to all of us and then we were able to go through the hall with these and then we went to the stairs, and we went down with the lights.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The windows shook. The bed was shaking, because I was still in bed. Didn't hear anything right off the bat, and then my neighbor started coming out and asking questions, and yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was the first thing that came to your mind when you felt this earthquake here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sorry. Well, since I was just waking up, I was surprised and it was like questioning myself, is this an earthquake? I didn't know what was going on quite yet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you scared or were you pretty calm when all of this was happening?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was calm. It was kind of more like disbelief, more like, since I come from the Midwest, we're used to like tornadoes and heavy wind so I was thinking, well maybe it's just the wind because it's been storming a lot.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: The big island of Hawaii for example is in a state of emergency right now. We want to bring you up to speed on the situation at the airports in case you are flying from the mainland of the United States to Hawaii. In Maui apparently the airport there did suffer some damage. We still don't know exactly how much damage there. Oahu, Honolulu International Airport did not have electricity as of 10:30 in the morning local time there, about four hours ago, but didn't allow computers to print out tickets, they couldn't get the jet ways attached to the airplanes. So they don't have outbound flights from Honolulu. But they are allowing airplanes to land there.
The big island of Hawaii we heard from the emergency operations center that the airports are open, but there may be some delays again due to power outages. At one point 95 percent of the island of Oahu was without power. That is how serious the situation is. That is a shot from one of our i-Reporters, an employee at the Honolulu International Airport gave us his view of what the passengers were doing now that they couldn't leave the airport. So a tough situation if they're trying to get out, trying to get home. We have much more continuing coverage including checking back with our CNN affiliate in Hawaii KITV. Stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: I'm Carol Lin at the CNN Center. We're going to give you a bird's eye view now of exactly what's happening live in Hawaii with our CNN affiliate KITV.
ALAN ARAKAWA, MAUI MAYOR: -- going out and taking a look at this and giving us an assessment. Because it's very isolated out there and because it is a Sunday, we have to have our personnel go out there and take a good look at it. It will be a while before we have a real good assessment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How about that landslide by the (INAUDIBLE) -- I believe I'm saying it correctly, bay side park? How long do you anticipate that being there before it's cleaned up?
ARAKAWA: Our crews are working on it. The state has some crews working on it as well. We're hoping we can get it cleaned up within a day or so. But my understanding is that the slide is kind of severe, so we're going to just play it by ear and get it clean as soon as we possibly can. Hopefully within a day or so.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok. Thank you, mayor.
AKANA: Thank you very much, mayor, from Maui. There you see more pictures that have come into thehawaiichannel.com from residents on Maui and the big island showing some of the quake damage that they have suffered in today's quakes. A lot of broken glass, a lot of cabinets that everything was dumped over and furniture and strewn all about. This one a very graphic scene from a kitchen with everything strewn about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mayor Arakawa touched on and I have a bulletin from the Maui Civil Defense Agency talking about (INAUDIBLE) Airport. This is an update, all United Airlines flights arriving and departing have been canceled today but passengers have been rebooked on other United flights. Also this bulletin says that all Hawaiian and Aloha flights are operating normally. This includes mainland departures and arrivals and also all Delta, American and Northwest Airline flights are also operating normally. It's just that United has canceled all of its flights for the rest of the day on the island of Maui.
AKANA: Of course if you talk to Daryl Huff, our Daryl Huff down at the airport, his word of advice is to just stay away from the airport. Chaos is what he calls it down at Honolulu Airport and not really prepared there for passengers with the electricity out, the backup electricity in, but no bathrooms working, no water. He says it's a pretty bad place to be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right. The ability to check passengers in, to check them through the security checkpoints is all being done manually so people are lining up. Of course you mentioned airlines are giving people some comfort in the form of water. Not sure on what the other forms of aid are being given to people standing in line for long periods of time, but we can tell you that we spoke to Daryl early this morning, it is now nearing 3:00, and the situation down at the airport is still the same as far as -- They're just on auxiliary power, running parts of the airport. The entire airport is not up to speed at this point. So as you said, Daryl Huff said just stay away from the airport. If you have any flights, you're just going to have to either cancel it or sit back and wait until this thing clears up. As we take a look at some more pictures being sent in from our viewers, this is a picture from the island of Hawaii, this is in the Kona area, a hotel room, and you can see the TV which would have been in that entertainment center is now flipped off onto its face. And a lot of reports of people saying that everything was shaken off their shelves, TVs, a refrigerator shaken off according to a radio personality on the island of Hawaii saying that a refrigerator toppled over, a bunch of different reports regarding property damage.
AKANA: Property damage, homes slipping off foundations and so forth. We're going to head back down into the newsroom, Gary Sprinkle is standing by with a caller. Gary?
GARY SPRINKLE: Ok, yeah, a very important caller Paula, it's big island Mayor Harry Kim. Harry, what is the very latest situation on the big island in terms of people having their power back and being up and running again?
HARRY KIM, BIG ISLAND MAYOR: Unfortunately Gary the Hawaii Electric Light Company is still responding to power outages and as you know along with power outages for some areas there would be also without water. For some areas of South Koala, South Kona and even the Hilo area, people are still without power and consequently without water, although some areas have been restored. We do have high population area of South Koala and South Kona that are still without power and water. And the department of water supply are making some arrangements for those areas that we anticipate may be without water for a while, and a coordination in regards to deliverance of emergency water tankers or to open up the emergency water spigots at the nearest fire hydrant as soon as possible and hopefully you know we'll get power back on where this won't have to be long term, but unfortunately it's quite still unsure how long this will be.
SPRINKLE: Mayor, we understand that there are some pockets of the big island that may be cut off so that people are unable to come in and get whatever provisions they may need. What are those pockets and how should those people be reacting?
KIM: The pockets is yes, true, in regards to there's some areas that to get from here to there, they will have to take a very long way around. For example, one of the major highways north and south and the only major highway along between the north and south side of the island is known as (INAUDIBLE) belt highway or (INAUDIBLE) highway or highway 19, that's all one highway. We do have reports that the damage of subsidence in one particular area, just on the Hilo side of a town called (INAUDIBLE) which is about 35 miles north of Hilo town have collapsed, and engineers are looking at it to see the extent of the damage where the part of it can be reopened or not. And in any event it cannot be we'll try to find alternate routes. There's also communities in North Koala that will take a very long route because a bridge may have been damaged, and that's also being evaluated. However, no one is in an isolated in a sense that not being able to buy or get provisions because all of them -- have stores and places to go within their district.
SPRINKLE: Harry, you mentioned the (INAUDIBLE) area being pretty well damaged. That's not too far from (INAUDIBLE), so, that portion of the (INAUDIBLE) coast is, would you say that that took the biggest beating or --
KIM: No, I think the biggest beating as far as impact, as you know the epicenter of the earthquake was on the west side of the island, offshore from the Kona airport. And so as far as damages in regards to those places including hotels I would say was the most severe. As far as the east side or (INAUDIBLE) Hilo side we have not had any reports at this point, and I will stress at this point, in regards to structural type of damage except for some what we would classify as kind of minor. But the reports of damages we're getting so far that are considered moderate to heavy are primarily on the west side.
LIN: All right. You've been listening to our local affiliate in Hawaii, KITV. We here at CNN are expecting to hear from the governor of Hawaii at any moment. There's going to be a press briefing and when that happens we're going to bring that to you live.
The big island of Hawaii in a state of emergency right now. Parts of it without power or water as you've just been hearing, and CNN's meteorologist Rob Marciano predicting that there may be some severe weather to hit the Hawaiian Islands tonight.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, they're under a flood watch most of the islands are with the exception of the big island, so that's good news for the folks who got hit the hardest, and that would be the island of Hawaii itself. Typically Kona doesn't see much rain at all. Trade winds (INAUDIBLE) come in, and they only get the south and west winds maybe about 10 percent of the time. So not only an extraordinary earthquake, but also an extraordinary weather pattern as well. We have not seen any aftershocks for the past three hours, so that's good news. There have been 29 in total. Most of them unfelt or not felt by folks at the surface, but since the 6.6 magnitude quake there was a 5.8 shortly thereafter and a 4.4 three about three and a half hours ago. We've seen three other after tremors right around 2.7 sense then, but really the last three hours have been relatively quiet.
There's that front you see coming across the radar screen, rainfall has been -- well, there's been quite a bit across Honolulu for the past month and a half, and they're seeing more tonight. The big island will see some showers with this, but if there's going to be any rainfall likely will be tomorrow. This particular quake was 24 miles deep, it was away from active Volcanoes, and because of that geologists at the University of Hawaii think that this was not caused by magma that was flowing from an active volcano, so this is a rare and very strong earthquake for this part of the world, this part of Hawaii. So seismologists and geologists, Carol, are certainly intrigued to say the least by this quake and they'll be analyzing the data for days to come.
LIN: You bet and in the meantime emergency crews fanning out across the islands looking for any of the injured who have not been transported to area hospitals. Once again we're going to be hearing from the governor of Hawaii, and when we get that press conference we're going to bring it to you live. We've got updates throughout the hour coming up on "LARRY KING LIVE" whose guest is Donald Trump and a full hour of news at 10:00 tonight. We are all over the story. Stay with CNN.
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