I find it rude when people complain about how their weekend was ruined by the tsunami false alarm. Some people even took the warning as a joke.

I personally wasn’t that affected by it since I was upcountry that night, but I was still worried about my family, my friends and my pets (all eight of my dogs). I think that some people took this tsunami warning as a joke because the last tsunami warning resulted in little damage.

But here are some words of wisdom: just because it didn’t happen the last time, doesn’t mean that it will never happen again.

Mother Nature can be very beautiful and peaceful, but in her times of rage, there is destruction and death. Mother Nature is no joke. She means business.

My dad always told me to never take advantage of Mother Nature because sometimes we forget how powerful she is until some kind of disaster happens.

So, when I heard people saying that next time there’s a tsunami warning they’re not going to do anything, all I started to think about was, “What if it actually does hit and cause a lot of damage this time?” It’s always better to be safe than sorry, right? (As you’re reading this, I hope you’re nodding your head and silently saying “Right!”)

In fact, all of this talk about Mother Nature brings two words to mind: Hurricane Sandy. That is a huge and immediate reminder of why we should never ignore Mother Nature.

Imagine all of the people on the East Coast who are being affected by this. I mean, it’s on the news and flooding social media networks (no pun intended).

We see what these poor people are having to endure. The loss of their own family members (over 20 dead at last report), the loss of all belongings, the loss of their homes… the loss of basically everything they ever had. Millions of people are being affected.

Subways in New York City are full of water from the heavy rain, neighborhoods are burned down to ashes from electrical fires, homes on the Jersey Shore are buried in sand from the massive waves that came on shore, and millions of people are still without power.

The repair bill for all of the damage from Hurricane Sandy will be in the billions and clean up will take years.

So, I honestly think that it’s really selfish of Hawai’i people to complain that the tsunami didn’t happen or how the false alarm “ruined their weekend,” because if something like Hurricane Sandy hit our islands, well, let’s just hope it doesn’t.

Instead of cursing the tsunami warning for ruining your weekend, think of the millions of people on the East Coast whose lives are ruined because of Hurricane Sandy. If you get a chance to help in some way, do it because, really, one day, the tsunami could be real, and then we’d probably give anything for it to have been a false alarm again.

Count your blessings and please remember to be grateful for the beautiful weather we have here in Hawai’i. We are truly blessed, everyone!