Here in Seattle, the ripple effects of the tsunami warning for coastal Washington, the Hawaiian Islands, and parts of coastal Alaska are impacting people trying to fly to and from Hawaii.
On Tuesday night, Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines temporarily paused flights due to the threat. They also turned some flights that were en route to Hawaii back to the mainland.
Hawaiian Airlines sent a flight to Honolulu from Seattle around 9 p.m. Tuesday and another at 8 a.m. Wednesday.
Alaska Airlines did delay some flights to and from Honolulu overnight, issuing a statement Tuesday night:
“We are monitoring a tsunami warning for the Hawaiian Islands and portions of the state of Alaska and assessing our flight operations,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement. “Guests with travel to, from, or within the Hawaiian Islands should check the status of their flight before heading to the airport.”
Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines are now seemingly back to normal as of 10 a.m. Wednesday.
People travelling to and from Hawaii tell us this has been a whirlwind 24 hours.
Jacob and Justine Steiskal’s last day in Honolulu quickly went from sitting on the beach to scrambling for higher ground.
“I got the alert first on the phone saying you’re in danger, leave coastal areas,” Jacob said.
They tell us once they got to a friend’s house safe in the mountains, they were glued to watching updates on TV.
“They were saying this wave is gonna come in from Russia at 500mph at like six feet high, so we didn’t really know what was going on,” Jacob said.
Justine tells us people’s flights were suddenly cancelled and delayed, but they went to the airport anyways.
“Our flight kept saying on time still even though every other flight was delayed or cancelled,” Justine said.
They did make it out and to Seattle, but say the flight took off 45 minutes late with no warning or communications from Hawaiian Airlines.
Here at home, the flights to the Hawaiian Islands are back on track.
Laura Anderson is headed to Hawaii this morning. She said she woke up to see the news and the warnings, but isn’t worried.
“This was our original flight time, we did wake up this morning thinking ‘Oh crap, can we go?’, but there was nothing saying it’s cancelled, it’s on time,” Anderson said.
We found Allyson Andrews-Nelson in the bag check area for her Hawaii flight. She tells us she currently lives there, but her house is not in the evacuation zone. She says their main concern is being able to land at HILO, the Hawaii airport that was turned into an evacuation area overnight.
“They opened up all the runways so people can get out, and they go through runways to go higher,” Andrews-Nelson said.
Everyone we spoke with said it’s shocking how much an event in Russia can impact everyone here at home.
“People are real tough, though, and they’ll make it,” Andrews-Nelson said.
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