“In response to local emergency procedures and to prioritize the safety of our guests and crew, Pride of America was required to depart Hilo, Hawaii, immediately.”
After an 8.8 magnitude earthquake on Russia’s Pacific Coast Tuesday, tsunami warnings were issued for Hawaii, Alaska, and the U.S. West Coast. Alert warnings were pushed to mobile phones and alarms went off throughout the Hawaiian Islands in anticipation of wave activity on the state’s beaches and shorelines.
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) had a ship, the Pride of America, in port at Hilo on the Island of Hawai‘i when the alert went off. The ship wasn’t scheduled to depart the port until 6 p.m., but in response to an urgent request from the Hawai‘i Department of Transportation, it departed the port early, leaving some passengers still ashore.
“In response to local emergency procedures and to prioritize the safety of our guests and crew, Pride of America was required to depart Hilo, Hawaii, immediately,” a NCL spokesperson told The New York Times.
Some passengers took to social media to vent their frustrations, complaining they weren’t given any notice, or enough time to get back to the ship before it departed the port. Some passengers spent the night in their excursion tour buses or in a shelter at a local school. Elsewhere in Hawai’i, residents in low-lying areas were advised to get to high ground as quickly as possible.
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Tsunami warnings were issued across the Pacific, and increased wave activity was ultimately noted in California, French Polynesia, Hawai‘i, and Japan. In Hawai‘i, waves reached as high as five feet, but no major damage or significant flooding has been reported.
When tsunami warnings are issued, the U.S. Coast Guard typically orders the ports cleared of commercial vessels from harbors, and that order was issued for Hawaii on Tuesday afternoon. An approaching tsunami can cause tidewaters to form harbors, grounding large ships and preventing their exit from the harbors, so it’s imperative that the vessels leave harbor for the open ocean as expediently as possible, which is a much safer location for them to wait out the warning.
A large cruise ship still in port at the time a large tsunami hits could be forced aground and inland by the waves, causing significant damage to both the ship and nearby structures. While it might have been ideal for the ship to wait long enough for all passengers to return, cruise ships, like any other vessel in port, must follow instructions from local port and emergency officials when issued. Cruise lines have little recourse when port officials order them to depart ports for safety reasons.
Although the tsunami warning was lifted late Tuesday, Pride of America waited for local officials to complete safety checks in the harbor before it could return to embark the remaining passengers. The ship departed for its next port of call, Nawiliwili, Kaua‘i, around 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Pride of America is the only cruise ship sailing itineraries wholly within the Hawaiian Islands on a year-round basis. The ship offers seven-day sailings from Honolulu, calling at the islands of Maui, Hawai‘i, and Kauai before returning to Honolulu.
Oceania Cruises’ Oceania Regatta was at Kona at the time the order was issued, and that ship also departed early, leaving ten passengers behind. An Oceania spokesperson told Travel Market Report that they were in contact with the affected passengers and are working with local authorities to get them back onboard the ship at their earliest opportunity. The ship’s next scheduled port of call is Kahului, Maui.
Airline traffic at some Hawai‘i airports was also interrupted on Tuesday, but had resumed by the late evening hours. Fewer than 10% of flights at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport were affected by the ground stop. Some airlines, including Hawaiian, Alaska, American, and United, issued flexible travel policies for passengers booked from Hawaii airports on July 29 and 30.