Americans evacuate to higher ground as tsunami alarm sounds
Many residents raced for higher ground to stay safe as the first tsunami waves hit Hawaii on Wednesday morning. The rush has triggered huge traffic jams stretching many miles. In Alaska, emergency management officials warned that powerful waves could strike within hours, urging coastal communities to stay alert. In California, Oregon and Washington, beachgoers were told to stay out of the water as tsunami watches stretched across thousands of miles of coastline.
Some residents rushed to buy fuel, food and bottled water, fearing a repeat of previous disasters. Others remained unfazed, with videos circulating online of people refusing to leave their homes or gathering to watch the waves roll in. In one TikTok video, a user shares her panic as sirens blare in the background. With a worried look on her face, Shelbykblackburn says: 'I'm shaking right now. A warning has officially gone off. 'We just got a notification that there's a tsunami threat. The boats - looks like they're turning around and coming back in. There are a lot of people out on their background looking and running upstairs. This just got really scary.'
Another user, Holistic Alexandra, appears close to tears and captions her video: 'Guys, they just turned on the tsunami alarms, and I got another alert on my phone and they said there's going to be a direct hit to Hanalei in Kauai.' In a follow-up clip, Shelbykblackburn films herself with huge skyscrapers in the background. Cheers can be heard echoing from nearby buildings. She says: 'Everybody is cheering and screaming. I don't know if that means it's about to hit, if they see something, but I don't see anything. Maybe it's just kind of like a we are all in this together situation. There're cell phones flashing.'
In a separate video, a man on a balcony joins in the cheers, seemingly unconcerned about the looming threat. He is one of many who appear unbothered by the danger. On TikTok, a man using the name Go_BigorGo_HomeTyler is seen smiling on a boat. He tells the camera: 'Honestly, I knew I was crazy. My family knows I'm crazy, but I'm on some next-level [expletive] I never actually thought I'd be doing. After our tsunami warning that I just posted about over on Big Island, that should be hitting us in two hours, I'm currently driving towards it on a boat. Going straight at it. Straight at the girl.'
He adds: 'We're gonna go surf that wave. I always joked about it, and now, the law of attraction. It's real. It's so funny.' He also says he plans to go fishing while at sea, and also shows a man casually jumping into the ocean before promising viewers updates from his expedition. In a second video, he shows off a sunset from the water. 'So guys, here's the sunset before the storm. Absolutely beautiful. We are exactly 15 to 20 minutes from the first wave,' he says. Over on X, formerly Twitter, one user filmed a man surfing in the ocean despite the warnings.
The surfer can be seen calmly lying on his board as he paddles out into the waves. Elsewhere, groups of people gathered for a 'tsunami watch party' from what they claimed was a safe distance. Videos show them filming the horizon and waiting for the first waves to hit, with some bringing sweets and snacks to mark the occasion.
Another TikTok user, posting under the name firstgenamericanyt, filmed himself still in the water after officials urged people to stay away. 'The waves are definitely getting bigger than they were a few minutes ago,' he says. 'You can look it up. It's super legit. I pray it doesn't happen. Oh my God.'
Officials across the U.S. are urging residents in coastal areas to take the tsunami threat seriously and follow evacuation orders immediately. The warning comes as many recall the catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, triggered by a 9.1-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia.
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