A couple of years ago when I visited Hawaii for the first time, I was struck by its relative isolation from the rest of America. There are all the obvious geographic obstacles, but in addition to that, outside of vacation time people here on the mainland of the USA just don’t think about Hawaii much.
The island of Oahu lost power Friday evening in the midst of heavy rain and lightning, leaving some 800,000 residents and thousands of tourists in the dark, as well as the neighborhood where President-elect Barack Obama was vacationing.
Residents were being advised by the power company and civil authorities to get to their homes and conserve water. Several radio stations were broadcasting emergency information.
Gov. Linda Lingle said that Hawaiian Electric Co. was taking an emergency generator to the compound on the east side of the island where Obama has been staying. Lingle said she had asked the utility to notify her when it had been delivered.
Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann told KSSK radio that Obama is in one of the “most secure places, so he’ll be OK.”
It’s quite possible that for the next 4-8 years we’re going to hear more about Hawaii than we did about Crawford, Texas. And that’s going to be a pretty cool thing. Because – no slight to the folks of Crawford (their local paper endorsed Obama) – but hearing more about Hawaii is a refreshing change from the ordinary.
Though I’m still waiting for the first president from here in Maryland, the southern state with a Yankee sense of mind.
Is Maryland in the United States?
Your Maryland President is a good idea; if my California upbringing is any indication, the rest of the country knows damn-all about Maryland. It’s taken me years to figure out that that’s a bad thing.
Funny about that famous Mason-Dixon Line, isn’t it? Separates the part of Benjamin Franklin’s state that wants to repeal science (keywords: Dover, Kitzmiller) from the most Northern state in the South. Big deal.
I’ll bet you don’t even have Southern efficiency and Northern charm, at least outside of the DC suburbs.
We get those big electric storms this time of year in Hawaii. Our electricity was out for a couple of hours.
I don’t feel isolated, though, in spite of living on the Big Island of Hawaii, one of the outer islands. Seems like the center of the universe to me!
And we got lots and lots of snow on the mountains. Snow in Hawaii? Yep. And it got down to 62 last night here. BRR!!
Maybe now that we have a president who rates below Buchanan, Pennsylvania will get another chance. Although I can’t think of any of us who’d be up to the job.