If yesterday's tsunami had been "the big one," authorities say warnings would have gone out in time and coastal evacuations would have been reasonably orderly.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center concluded before dawn yesterday that the tsunami was not big enough to justify firing off emergency sirens and evacuating coastal communities — but the effects were still powerful and somewhat dramatic in shallow waters around the state.

Rip currents, boiling water and whirlpools formed around points of land, breakwaters and reefs. The Coast Guard station at Nawiliwili Small Boat Harbor on Kaua'i reported a surge of 6 to 8 feet that overturned its floating dock, and water poured over boat piers and into the parking lot there. Surfers at Hanalei and the North Kaua'i surf spot called Rock Quarry reported water withdrew far enough to expose the reefs.

Yesterday's Kuril Islands quake was big, rated at magnitude 8.3.

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory chief Jim Kauahikaua said that even sensors on Kilauea picked it up. "It's large enough that it would have been seen (on instruments) all over the world. You could just see the earth ringing," Kauahikaua said.

CIVIL DEFENSE READY

State Civil Defense Deputy Director Ed Teixeira said that Civil Defense authorities were ready for yesterday's event — just a month after two powerful earthquakes shook the state and pointed up shortfalls in the Civil Defense readiness. Virtually all the state's emergency-response agencies showed up yesterday, and they were connected electronically as information came before dawn.

"I believe we were ready to go. If the decision had been made by the director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center to go to a warning, we were ready to sound the sirens and we were ready to evacuate the coastlines," Teixeira said.

On Kaua'i, for example, Civil Defense coordinator Mark Marshall said that by 3 a.m., his operations center was filled with federal, state and county officials, plus representatives of nongovernmental agencies like the Red Cross. They were in touch with similar groups of officials in each county as well as the state's Civil Defense centers.

The problem, Marshall said, was that the tsunami was a borderline size. Any smaller and it would have been easy to relax and send folks home. Any larger and it would have been easy to wake the entire state up with sirens at 4:30 or 5 a.m.

Civil Defense officials had long discussions about the "crying wolf" issue — evacuations were ordered in 1994 and no significant tsunami arrived, leading to fears people would fail to heed warnings if it happened again.

"I think there's a lot of apathy. If you cry wolf, the next time there's a warning, people will say, 'I ain't going,'" Balfour said.

TRUST NEEDED

The head of the state's Civil Defense operation, Maj. Gen. Robert Lee, said the public needs to be able to trust that state and county emergency authorities are taking their responsibilities seriously.

"I know a month ago people (after the Big Island earthquake) all said 'sound the sirens.' But as long as I am in charge, if I know there is no tsunami, I am not going to sound the sirens. We have to have this trust with the public. We can't have a siren being sounded ... and people wondering: 'Did Civil Defense make a mistake?' " Lee said.

And there is the continual problem of people who do the exact opposite of what is required, Marshall said.

"The two-edged sword is, we warn you, and how many people get in the truck and go down to the shore to watch," he said.

Civil Defense officials statewide were concerned that if yesterday's tsunami was more powerful, there would have been deaths because too many people took risks.

WARNINGS IGNORED

Many Hawai'i residents heeded warnings, but many more completely ignored them, including surfers — some of whom found themselves on the reef as waters receded and were sucked back and forth by rip currents.

"The Civil Air Patrol was out there and told surfers, 'You ought to come in,' and they ignored the word," said Honolulu acting Civil Defense chief Bill Balfour. "I don't understand people sometimes. I don't know what goes through their minds."

State Civil Defense spokesman Ray Lovell concurred: "If this had been the big one, there probably would have been people that would have ignored the warning, gone out in the water, and there would have been people killed."

One issue that arose yesterday was that water heights in a few cases far exceeded what was shown on the official tide gauge numbers, and it points up the danger of a tsunami. In specific locations, the shape of the ocean floor can dramatically increase the height and danger of the water. And just because this tsunami creates a big effect at this location doesn't mean the same will happen with the next tsunami.

"Tsunami science in this state has a long way to go. We need to localize it, to account for local variations, and that takes a lot of money and a lot of computer power. Our computers could barely keep up with this tsunami. This science has been underfunded for decades," said Stuart Koyanagi, a geophysicist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

"There were areas with high run-ups in this event, but for the next event, it may be totally different, because it will come from a different direction," Koyanagi said.

"It always makes a huge difference where you are, locally. There are places where tsunami waves get focused in the state of Hawai'i," said National Weather Service tsunami program manager Joel Kline. "Nawiliwili, Hale'iwa, Kahului and Hilo are such places, due to the way the bays are physically formed."

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.