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  • Home
    • Upcoming Events
    • About hakalauhome
    • Contact Us!
  • Yesterday
    • Timeline >
      • 1880s Detail
      • 1890s Detail
      • 1900s Detail
      • 1910s Detail
      • 1920s Detail
      • 1930s Detail
      • 1940s Detail
      • 1950s Detail
      • 1960s Detail
      • 1970s Detail
      • 1980s Detail
      • 1990s Detail
      • 2000s Detail
    • Camps >
      • Hakalau Upper Camp
      • Hakalau Lower Camp
      • Wailea Spanish Camp
      • Wailea Store Camp AKA Wailea Mill Camp
      • Chin Chuck Genjiro Camp
      • Chin Chuck Stable Camp
      • Honohina Upper Camp
      • Honohina Lower Camp
      • Honohina Mauka and Nanue Camps
      • Kamaee Camps - all three
      • Pake (Ah Ling) and Kaminaka Camps
      • Kahuku Camp
      • Yamagata Camp
    • Schools >
      • Hakalau School
      • John M. Ross School
    • Churches >
      • Hakalau Jodo Mission >
        • The Early Years
        • Years Between World Wars
        • The Mamiya Years
        • The Later Years
      • Honohina Hongwanji
    • Cemeteries
    • Hangouts and Memories >
      • Hakalau Park and School Complex
      • H. Fujii Store and Bakery
      • Jimmy's Hi-Way Cafe
      • Nishimoto Store
      • Nishiyama Bus Service and Garage
    • The Voice of Hakalau (Newspaper)
    • Work >
      • Hakalau Mill & Other Buildings
      • Wailea Milling Company: The Independent Homestead Mill
    • Hamakua Roads in the 19th Century: Firsthand Accounts
    • Bridges >
      • New Highway Bridges Hakalau 1950-1953
    • The Railroad
    • 1946 Tsunami
  • Today
    • Issues Today
    • Hakalau Farmers Market
    • Hakalau Jodo Mission Today
    • Honohina Hongwanji Today
    • Hakalau Reunions
    • Wailea Village Historic Preservation Community >
      • Cemetery Stewardship
      • Reviving Hakalau School
      • Senior Luncheons
      • Mochi Pounding
  • Tomorrow
    • Arsenic Remediation
    • Cliff Failures
    • Hāmākua Community Development Plan & Action Committee
    • Ninole Development (Mile Marker 19)

1946 Tsunami

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Hakalau Mill after the 1946 Tsunami. Photo courtesy of Akiko Masuda, photographer unknown.
The April 1, 1946 tsunami (not tidal wave) wreaked havoc on the Big Island. "The 1946 tsunami was generated by a magnitude-8.6 earthquake in the Aleutian Islands. It took five hours for the waves to reach the Hawaiian Islands. Unfortunately, there was no warning system at that time. There was devastation to homes, schools and businesses in Hilo and elsewhere, to the piers at the Port of Hilo, and to the railroad track and train cars." (Source: Barbara Muffler, Hawaii Tribune Herald, 4/1/2017). 126 Big Island residents died.

Fortunately no lives were lost on the Hakalau Plantation. However, damage was extensive and the impact on the process and profitability of sugar production was felt for years.  Key impacts of the tsunami included:
  • Sugar production was drastically reduced in 1946, 10,595 tons instead of the projected 26,000 tons. 
  • ​The mill was destroyed and needed to be replaced.The mill reconstruction was not finished until March 1947 and full efficiency not reached until May 1947.
  • Major flumes were destroyed.
  • The railroad system was destroyed, to be replaced by heavy trucks.
  • The Port of Hilo, the point from which sugar was shipped to the Mainland for processing, was severely damaged. Cane could not be shipped until late June 1946.
According to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in its publication The Tsunami of 1946:
  • At Hakalau Gulch, it [the water] reached 37 feet above sea level on the south side of the valley mouth and 23 to 29 feet on the north side.
  • Fourteen noticeable large waves at intervals of about 10 minutes were counted at Hakalau Mill, the seventh or eighth being the largest.
  • At Kolekole Stream, the water reached 37 feet above sea level.

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Excerpt from C. Brewer's 1946 Annual Report, ​courtesy of John Cross, Custodian of the Records, the Olson Trust Sugar Plantation Archives.
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Excerpt from the Hakalau Plantation's 1946 Annual Report, ​courtesy of John Cross, Custodian of the Records, the Olson Trust Sugar Plantation Archives.
Photo taken by head bookkeeper Ralph Murray shows people watching the devastation at the top of the cliff near the warehouse. The trolley tracks are clearly visible, along with the chute from the top down to the mill and the flume along the cliff on the left side of the picture. 
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Photo courtesy of Darrellyn Bates, granddaughter of Ralph Murray and grand niece of Guy Murray.
A slide show of the devastation is below.
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Hawaii Tribune Herald, May 5, 1947, accessed via Newspapers.com.
The financial and operational impacts of the tsunami on the Hakalau Plantation were felt for years to come:
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Excerpt from Hakalau Plantation's 1951 Annual Report, ​courtesy of John Cross, Custodian of the Records, the Olson Trust Sugar Plantation Archives.
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The new Hakalau Mill complex finished in 1947. C. Brewer Annual Report 1947, courtesy of John Cross, Custodian of the Records, the Olson Trust Sugar Plantation Archives. 
Hakalau Plantation's 1947 Annual Report recounts difficulties recovering from the tsunami:
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Excerpt's from Hakalau Plantation's 1947 Annual Report, ​courtesy of John Cross, Custodian of the Records, the Olson Trust Sugar Plantation Archives.
The aftermath at the Mill Site: photos courtesy of Akiko Masuda, photographer unknown. Contact us if you know who took these pictures so we may acknowledge him or her.
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 Other sources of information on the Tsunami of April 1, 1946:
  • Hawaii Tribune Herald Article, April 1, 2017, "Waves of memories: Stories paint picture of what it was like to experience 1946 tsunami" by Barbara Muffler
  • Hilo Tribune Herald Article, April 2, 1946, "Hakalau Damage Over $500,000" 
  • Hilo Tribune Herald, April, 1946, "Official Big Island Tidal Wave Death List Released by Board of Health"
  • Pacific Tsunami Museum images
  • "The Tsunami of April 1, 1946", by F.P. Shepard, G.A. MacDonald, and D.C. Cox, Bulletin of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography of the University of California, Vol. 5, No. 6, pp. 391-528, issued March 24, 1950
  • 27 Hours Adrift: Surviving the 1946 April Fool's Day tsunami (Laupahoehoe)
  • On This Day In 1946, The Unthinkable Happened In Hawaii
  • ​"Transportation and the 1946 Tsunami", by Ian Birnie​