Happy Monday everyone! I hope your iPhone alarm went off on time Sunday, and you are not too cranky today.

This week will be pretty busy with a Galt City Council meeting on Tuesday and a Lodi City Council meeting on Wednesday. For more information, check out our meeting listing.

I will be writing about the Lodi City Council voting to charge homeowners $300 for water meter installation today. Anyone send in a letter to the city of Lodi protesting water meter charges? Call me at 369-7035.

And now onto the tsunami.

I wrote a story Friday about Lodi residents trying to contact family members and one Lodi couple experiencing the tsunami warning in Maui.

Former Lodi residents Lois and Bill Hodges live in Kona for part of the year. They e-mailed me a first-hand account of what happened during the tsunami, which I just copied and pasted:

Our wave arrival time came and went under cover of darkness so we couldn't really see much except a long string of boats lit up out offshore. The ocean did get very quiet and then louder than usual but just for a couple of minutes.

We live on Alii Drive but on the mauka (mountain) side of the street. Alii Drive evacuated but we stayed put. Although we are across the street from the ocean, we are up a steep hill and at an elevation that is right on the edge of the tsunami evacuation zone. We did pack a bag and fill the bath tub with water and got out the candles then went to bed and set the alarm for a time an hour before the wave was scheduled to hit.

When we awoke the news was reporting that the effect on Guam was minimal so we decided not to leave our home.

With daylight we could see that there is damage on the makai (ocean) side of Alii and there is a lot of debris all down Alii Drive so it was closed to traffic. The King Kamehameha Hotel and the pier area took a lot of water and we understand that the water washed through the lobby of the hotel. The hotel is recently remodeled and the lobby is a showplace of the beautiful artwork of Herb Kane who died two days ago so we are hoping that all of the artwork was saved.

The county road crews began cleaning up right away and didn't allow anyone to go into the area that was most damaged, even on foot, so we didn't get to check out what damage has happened at the shops. There was plenty of warning so they all the proprietors should have had plenty of time to remove their inventory, but I don't know how many actually did.

Make sure you check out the photos from the Hughes. Also, thanks to all of our readers for the feedback I received on the tsunami story. I'm sure we will continue to follow the cleanup efforts.