Longer impact could be fewer travelers to islands The closing of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for a few hours yesterday after an earthquake struck the Seattle area caused a one-day delay for some airline flights between there and Hawai’i. The earthquake
Longer impact could be fewer travelers to islands
The closing of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for a few hours yesterday after an earthquake struck the Seattle area caused a one-day delay for some airline flights between there and Hawai’i.
The earthquake delay amounted to the equivalent of a weather or mechanical delay in terms of passengers leaving Kaua’i and Hawai’i for that airport, and for travelers bound for the islands from there, said Sue Kanoho, executive director of Kaua’i Visitors Bureau.
The two Hawaiian Airlines nonstop flights from Honolulu to Seattle, scheduled to leave Honolulu at 2:05 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. yesterday, were rescheduled to leave Honolulu at 12:20 a.m. and 2:40 a.m. today, respectively, said an airline spokesman.
The flights were expected to return to Honolulu today at their regularly scheduled Seattle departure times of 8:50 and 11:10 a.m.
It will be a while before it is known what impact if any the earthquake there will have on visitors to the state from the Pacific Northwest, Kanoho said. But when disasters strike at home, taking care of those domestic issues becomes more important than taking leisure vacations, she noted.
Washington consistently ranks between the third and fifth most important market areas for Kaua’i, based on requests for vacation planners and other island information, she added.
The visitors bureau will continue to monitor news reports out of Seattle and may have to plan an emergency marketing strategy if visitor arrivals from Washington state begin dropping, Kanoho said.
A contingent from Kaua’i, led by Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, recently attended the Seattle Travel Show to promote tourism to Kaua’i from that city and state.
Yesterday’s earthquake left eastbound travelers from Hawai’i to the Pacific Northwest scrambling to make different connections or other travel arrangements, as flights scheduled into Seattle were rerouted to Salt Lake City, Utah, Portland, Ore. and other destinations.
Some flyers inbound to Hawai’i from Seattle and bound for the neighbor islands yesterday likely couldn’t make their inter-island connections out of Honolulu and had to overnight on O’ahu, Kanoho surmised.
As of yesterday afternoon, the Seattle airport’s Web site reported that only around 40 percent of normal arrivals were coming in, and that departures would depend on planes being at the airport and available.
The airport, located between Seattle and Tacoma, closed immediately following the 10:54 a.m., 6.8-magnitude quake, and resumed limited operation around 2:30 p.m.
The control tower suffered structural damage, losing all but one of its windows, and a temporary control tower was constructed yesterday.
An airport spokesman estimated it could be a few days until flight schedules are back to normal.
Back on Kaua’i, the civil defense agency was put on alert briefly, long enough to learn that no tsunami had been generated by the earthquake.
Mark Marshall, Kaua’i County civil defense administrator, said the center of the quake was too far underground and too far inland to generate a tsunami.
News reports were crediting earthquake readiness for the relatively minor damage and loss of life caused by the quake. Marshall said the federal government’s Project Impact partnership project, which Kaua’i recently joined for hurricane mitigation matters, is in place and active in Seattle.
Most people knew the proper way to react when they realized they were experiencing an earthquake, and many Seattle buildings were retrofitted to be better able to survive an earthquake’s shaking, Marshall concluded.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
