The Pacific Tsunami Museum and Ken’s House of Pancakes

 In driving thru Hilo a couple of times, I noticed a building with the title Pacific Tsunami Museum on it, and figured that might be interesting.  We tried to go a previous night, but it was closed for a private event,  so we figured now would be a good time.  That turned out to be too naive, when we got there, we were told they were closing early and we only had 40 minutes before they closed.  But we looked around and got the gist of it.

Tsunami’s are typically caused by earthquakes along a coast and cause very long wavelength waves to propagate in all directions. Since Hawaii sort of sits in the middle of the Pacific, it turns out an earthquake anywhere around the Pacific Ocean coast can cause a tsunami in Hawaii (and other places too, but the focus here in Hawaii is Hawaii).  Hilo has been hit by a number of tsunamis, from earthquakes in Chili, Russia, Japan, Alaska, and more.

The waves are really interesting.  Most normal waves have a relatively short wavelength — the distance between crests of less than 500 feet.  But tsunami waves are very long (300 miles).  The height of the resulting wave as it comes ashore is related to the wavelength and the depth of the water, so they are very small waves in deep water, but become towering walls of water in shallow water.

Then we went to Ken’s House of Pancakes for lunch.  My brother had suggested Ken’s which has been around for a long theme.  We had eggs, bacon and pancakes.

Then back to our place to pack and clean up; tomorrow we move to Kona for one last night.


Location: Hawaii, USA

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