A REUNION TO REMEMBER
At Risk Again
By Minnie Pitts Champ
In 1949 a small Texas high school held graduation for a class of 21 people. When, in 1992 we began to consider a class reunion, I offered to put one together as a Tour of Hawaii. I worked for a resort on the Island of Kauai and knew how to make all the necessary arrangements and negotiations. For six months, we communicated via conference calls, etc. and arranged a 9-day, four-island tour. As their Tour Guide, I included “tourist” events and several special activities. Goody bags were collected for each person plus couple of dozen special prizes to be awarded: a helicopter tour for two, a subscription to the Kauai newspaper, special dinners.
I flew from Kauai to Honolulu the morning of their arrival in Honolulu to greet them when they got off the plane and escort them to Kauai. No problem, I thought. While I waited for them in the Delta Crown Room I worked on final tour details. Little did I know what the group had gone through before they left the Dallas/Fort Worth airport.
When they arrived, everyone was so excited. I thought it was their anticipation for the upcoming nine days. It took little time for them to tell me about their harrowing story of being held captive in the plane on the D/FW runway in a blowing thunderstorm with the plane being pitched back and forth. They really were looking forward to a relaxing vacation and “kicking back” and “hangin’ loose.”
By the time we arrived at Hanalei Bay Resort in Princeville, it was 10 pm. They were exhausted. Only three of the eighteen people from this tiny Texas town had ever been to the islands. They were overwhelmed with the Resort and ambience and overwhelmed by the lei greeting. During this excitement, a staff member asked me if I had heard the news. What I was told changed our whole 9-day, 4-island tour.
As fate would have it, the date was September 10, 1992 and Hurricane Iniki had that night chosen the Island of Kauai for its target the next day.
The group had no idea, nor did I, what we were to encounter the next 24 hours. We had a lovely late-night dinner in the Bali Hai Restaurant and went to our rooms to rest. I did not sleep for I had heard about what happened to Kauai in 1982 when Hurricane Iwa hit the island. It was not a pretty story.
About 5 am the next morning (September 11th), the island tsunami sirens sounded and my phone began to ring. We gathered in my room for a meeting. After considering racing for the airport, knowing that 40,000 other tourists would be doing the same thing, the group chose to stay and see it through. Because I was a staff member, I reported to the General Manager and staff and guests started the hurricane preparation.
Breakfast was served to the 300-plus guests who were given clear directions of how to prepare for the events to come. Very few guests chose to leave. Staff members went to work packing all restaurant and bar glassware, taping the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors, stacking and securing the furniture at the two pools and all the other emergency preparations. The National Weather Service had projected an early afternoon arrival of Hurricane Iniki.
Lunch was served, buffet style, at 11:30 am on paper plates & cups. By 12:30 pm the winds came up and we were told that Hurricane Iniki was about to hit. About 150 people crowded into the lower level of the restaurant building where many people had survived the 1982 hurricane. Three of my tour group and I rode out the storm in the three rooms at that location; the others went to their rooms. We had no idea how long we were going to be there and how close to the others in the shelter we would become.
There were other staff members in the group and because we were under the restaurant, we were kept supplied with food and drinks during the ordeal. The winds built higher and higher and it was impossible to keep the exterior doors closed. We watched out the doorway as the trees were laid over and debris flew through the air. One gust of wind caused the ceiling to fall down on us. Although no one was injured, we were all shaken up.
Sheets of roofing iron, a pallet, broken plants and other debris fly through the air at the height of Hurricane Iniki in Lihue, Kauai
(Photo by Bruce Asato, courtesy of the Honolulu Advertiser).
As the hours dragged along, we were surprised how long it was before the expected calm of the eye, which only meant that there was probably the same amount of storm still to occur. As it turned out, the storm which arrived in Princeville on the North Shore of Kauai about 12:30 pm blew off shore about 6 pm. Those hours filled us with dread and fear, a feeling that would never be forgotten.
During the entire ordeal, the General Manager and a few staff members had been out, at their own peril, checking property and guests. At one point, guests in rooms on the third floor of buildings were told to evacuate to the lower floors, as it was evident that roofs were being torn off by Iniki. Two couples in one of their rooms told us afterwards that the guys held the door to keep it from being blown open. Little did they know that if Iniki’s winds had hit the door, they would have been whipped right out of the room with the door. The only serious injury by any guest was a lady who was hit by a door that had been torn off its hinges.
It was dark and wet when we realized that Iniki had left us. We were instructed to remain where we were until the GM located rooms that were dry enough to be used. The grounds were totally covered with downed trees and uprooted shrubs as well as broken pieces of the buildings that were destroyed. It was dangerous to walk outside at all. As rooms were found, people would be taken from the emergency shelter to rooms. As staff members, we were the last to be placed and that was after ten that night.
When I woke up about 3 am and looked outside it was as bright as day for the full moon was hanging just above the mountain called Bali Hai. The reflection in Hanalei Bay made some beautiful photos.
The day was sunny and the weather clear, such a contrast to what we witnessed the last 24 hours. We gathered that morning for breakfast and had no idea what we were going to do next. As it turned out, the chef and kitchen staff were already in the restaurant preparing food for everyone. Since there was no electricity, Chef knew that all the valuable food in the freezers would be ruined so they planned to serve the 300+ guests two sumptuous meals a day until all the guests were able to get off the island.
Having lobster and steak with our eggs somehow cheered us and after breakfast almost everyone pitched in to assist the staff with the resort cleanup. The taped sliding glass doors surrounding the restaurant were shattered and ripped from their moldings. Glass was everywhere. Everything was wet and ruined. It was a sight to behold. People just wandered around the grounds in a daze looking at the destruction to buildings as well as to the trees and plants.
One of our four rented vehicles was destroyed on the parking lot as well as my personal car. Some of us took two of the vans to my residence to see how my house had fared. Just driving down the streets was so shattering to our emotions as we saw the homes and lives that were ravaged. The roads were covered with debris but we were able to get to my home. It was a scary sight.
Several of my friends had come the day before to help me pack up my apartment. There was only one room, a large walk-in closet, that had no windows. We put everything into the closet except the furniture. When we drove up after-Iniki, we could see that one of the eight giant Norfolk island pine trees had broken and fallen onto the house, right into the closet. So, nothing was spared from the rain. The apartment was totally destroyed with all the window glass shattered all over the carpet, the frig laying on its side and one wall in the bedroom blown in and laying on my bed. However, we took my clothes and other items to my room at the resort, hanging the wet clothes out on the lanai and balcony to dry.
Our class members spent a lot of time with each other reflecting on what had happened to us. Of course, we recognized how good God had been to protect us. It took four days before we were allowed to go to the airport and leave the island to pick up the tour to other islands. We had not driven outside of the Princeville & Hanalei area. We were shocked by the total devastation to forests, businesses & homes driving to the airport. Upon arrival, I learned that their Delta flight had been delayed, having spent hours on the tarmac in a blowing thunderstorm in Dallas.through the countryside toward the airport in Lihue, we were shocked by the devastation to the trees as well as the buildings and homes. By that time, the only road from the North Shore had been cleared enough for people to navigate the one lane road leading to the airport. We could see that Hurricane Iniki had totally ripped apart the island and left the entire population to start over again.
At the airport, which also had suffered damage, we were amazed at the line of people snaking around the parking lot still waiting to get cleared to get on planes. Because we had our rental vehicles, we were required to drop off everyone to stand in line, and the four drivers drove the rental vehicles to the football field where all rentals were being returned. We were shocked when we got there to see thousands of people in line after line waiting for the buses to carry them to the terminal. We stood in line there for hours before we finally were loaded on buses to join the balance of our group.
We were about to have another experience we would never forget–our flight from Lihue to Honolulu aboard a military the C-5A Galaxy, the largest and heaviest aircraft in the world. We took pictures before we boarded, as we boarded and inside. No one had ever been in one of these before and we found it only added one more memorable event for our group. We were flown from Lihue Airport to Tinker Air Force Base in Honolulu from which we were bused to the Honolulu Airport.
We were planning to pick up the remaining five days of our 9-day tour to the three other islands not damaged by Hurricane Iniki, for the group got to see nothing of the beauty and splendor of Kauai. The days were packed with wonderful relief from the trauma of the previous days with memory-making activities and places: Waikiki Beach where, as ‘Iniki refugees’ we were housed at the Outrigger Resort at $50 per person. Next day on to the Big Island of Hawaii, four to Maui and all ending back up on Oahu where we spent time at the Turtle Bay Hilton from which we toured the special activities there like Pearl Harbor, sunset cruise off Waikiki Beach and the Polynesian Cultural Center.
The members of the group were very worried about my returning to Kauai and Hanalei Bay Resort. They tried to convince me to leave with them and return to the Mainland. However, they understood my need to have closure on Kauai. At our last meal, the group revealed their true compassion when they presented me with an envelope filed with money to help finance my new start. What a lovely thing to do.
Although our tour had not been what had been so carefully planned, we had bonded and that continues today as we gather frequently in Texas, now that I’m back home in Texas.
The weird thing was that these class members had spent another stormy afternoon together under their desks in 1948 as juniors when a tornado ripped across our hometown in Texas. They may feel they are at risk as a group.
Minnie Pitts Champ worked at Hanalei Bay Resort when Hurricane Iniki struck the island. She was admin to the General Manager. Travel has been a passion and she started visiting Hawaii in the 1960s. The trip she made in 2009 was her 19th trip to the Islands. After returning to Texas, she took over her mother’s publishing company which she now operates.
