Quake? What quake?

It takes more than tiger sharks and an earthquake to derail the Ironman World Championships. All systems are go for Saturday. Here is Ironmanlive.com's Kevin Mackinnon's report.

Barb and I are Kona-bound tomorrow. I will continue posting the rest of the week, so stay tuned for on-the-scene nervous wreckage.

It probably comes as no surprise that pretty much every conversation heard on the island today at least starts with some sort of recounting of yesterday’s earthquake here in Kona.On my way out for a ride this morning I came across Dave Cracknell, Lisa Bentley’s husband, who was riding just outside of Hawi yesterday morning at 7:07 AM.

That wouldn’t have been too far from where the quake, which according to reports, measured 6.7 on the Richter scale, originated. To say that Cracknell and his riding buddies were shaken up would be an understatement. That area saw some pretty major landslides, and a number of boulders rolled onto the road – boulders the size of cars, Cracknell told me.

Everyone you meet who was here on the island yesterday seems determined to tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when the ground started to shake. I’ve heard a few stories of folks who were in the shower … one of the Ironman staff found himself hanging onto the shower head because things were moving around so much.

One thing is for certain – we are very lucky that things didn’t turn out worse. Early yesterday we heard reports of the roof of the local Wal-Mart collapsing – in the end that wasn’t the case. The hospital here in Kailua did have some damage, but not nearly as much as was implied in reports early yesterday, either.

That doesn’t mean this wasn’t a scary experience, and that Kona hasn’t sustained some damage. Inspectors are checking the roads and bridges today to evaluate the extent of the damage done by the quake, the largest experienced on the island in more than 20 years.

Thousands of people were evacuated from hotels for a time yesterday. Here on Kona, power was restored by the afternoon, but over in Honolulu there were still areas without power today.

Power outages are one thing, but living through an experience like that is another. A few people have said to me today that they thought they were going to die as the world started shaking around them. They say that with a bit of a laugh today, but yesterday I’m sure the experience was anything but funny.

As far as we know right now, the earthquake won’t affect Saturday’s race. As always, though, Ironman officials are in constant touch with the local authorities to ensure that the race doesn’t adversely affect the local community. Many athletes who were to fly in to Kona yesterday won’t arrive until today or tomorrow, which will no-doubt affect their race preparation. A few flights were turned around part way, and many others were delayed for hours.

You get the feeling, though, that things will get back to normal fairly soon. Within minutes after the quake yesterday athletes were seen running and biking. (The guy who yelled “Tsunami” during a fun run here yesterday helped speed up a lot of runners as they scrambled for high ground.)

It wasn’t just the athletes who wanted to get back to the swing of things – I’ve been told that lots of people were out surfing shortly after the earthquake, too.

Since you’ll no-doubt here lots of stories from all the folks you know who were here yesterday, I won’t tell you mine!We’ll see you tomorrow.