Brit family reveals Hawaii tsunami panic as they hunker down on 16ft floor of hotel and warning sirens blare
Emma Bardwell told The Sun how panic unfolded when warning sirens blared around the island amid possibilities of waves as high as 10ft.
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Emma began a road trip from California with her husband and two daughters - with Hawaii being their last stop.
The Brit family of four from Benfleet, Essex, booked rooms in the posh Beach Villas at Ko Olina in Oahu to spend some quality time together.
But as they sat down by the pool, gazing at the beautiful sea horizon, emergency warnings about a potential tsunami began flashing on their phones.
Emma said: "We're just having a normal day. And then we just got alerts on our phones saying a tsunami warning, and we need to evacuate.
"My eldest daughter started panicking when she turned on the news and saw everything. We got really worried.
"I was trying to stay calm because here with our two girls, so we didn't want to sort of show any panic.
"But you can't help those images out of your head of what we saw during the Boxing Day Tsunami all those years ago."
The Boxing Day Tsunami, also known as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history - killing more than 227,000 people.
Emma and her family said a sense of chaos took over as they saw people rushing back from the beach to get back to their hotels.
She revealed that she and her family tried to leave the hotel.
But as soon as they got out, they were told by the staff to stay inside.
"We have been stuck since," the family said, adding that the traffic outside of the hotel was "mental".
Isobel Bardwell, 16 and the family's youngest daughter, said: "And then we saw the traffic outside, which was mental.
"There was a high chance we would not have made it out of here anyway"
Isobel, who is on her first trip to Hawaii, told The Sun she got really scared after hearing about the tsunami warnings.
"I was really scared because this is my first time coming to Hawaii and being in a situation like this, she said.
"So to see that that's a warning, I just basically was just really scared. I didn't know what to do," the teen girl added.
Bardwells said they were currently sitting on their balcony, waiting to see if anything happens.
Isobel said: "The sun has set, and the waves are getting bigger than they were before. It's just dark, and we're just basically all in suspense.
"My family and I are still quite scared, since we're from England, so we don't really get this."
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Hawaii is now bracing for the possibility of 3m (10ft) surges that could strike across the northern islands in the chain.
Waves 1.2m (4ft) have already hit Hawaii, with video caught by locals showing the water receding moments before.
Locals in low-lying and coastal areas are now heading for the hills with warning sirens blasting out across Honolulu.
Drivers were seen waiting in huge queues of traffic as they try to flee Waikiki, Oahu.
Hawaii's governor Josh Green said they have so far "not seen a wave of consequence."
He said: "We still have not seen any wave activity come past the Big Island. That's important.
"Until we see what happens on the Big Island, we won't feel we're in a position to start saying that we're in the clear."
This could take up to three hours, he said.
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Gov Green added: "Just lay low tonight and watch TV, please."
The first tsunami waves hit the island after a monster 8.8 earthquake struck off the coast of Russia.
The magnitude 8.8 earthquake hit off Russia's far eastern Kamchatka peninsula on Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said.
The quake struck about 84 miles off the coast at around 7.24pm EST (12:30am BST) at a shallow depth of 19.3km (12 miles).
It is the 6th largest ever recorded and the largest since the 2011 shake, which led to a tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
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