Yesterday morning at 7:07 local Hawaii time, I was awakened by the sound of glass breaking, pictures falling off the walls, lamps crashing to the floor and the fear that our building had just been hit by a bomb.

In my confused state, I called my wife, Brooke, who is on the mainland and started to explain to her what had just happened to me and she said “Get out of there, it sounds like an earthquake.” I’m not sure why my first instinct wasn’t to get out of there as fast as I could and was pretty calm and collected considering now what we had all just lived through.

Just as I was finishing my call with Brooke, an aftershock hit and I finally decided it was ready to high tail it out of the condo. As I left my condo, all of my fellow team was standing outside already and was yelling at me to get out of the building.

It is hard to explain my thought process but through the entire ordeal, I never felt scared or threatened until the hotel workers next door was yelling at people to go to higher ground for fear that a Tsunami could strike at any time. It’s amazing how fast a natural disaster hits you and you have no time to react.

My condo was trashed. Every picture on the walls either fell down or was hanging crooked, all of the kitchen cupboards opened up and spit out wine glasses, coffee mugs, bowls and an entire spice cabinet. Broken glass was in the living room 12 feet away from the kitchen, in the bathroom and down the garbage disposal.

Since the power was out over the entire island of Hawaii, it was difficult to find food anywhere in town and all of the supermarkets suffered major damage and were closed. Cell phones were not even working. It’s at that time when you go into survival mode and reality sets in and it’s very frightening.

I am very thankful that we are all safe here and appreciate life that much more knowing that it can be taken from you at any time. Thanks to everyone who called or emailed yesterday concerned about our safety.