Powerful waves damage roads, submerge home on the Big Island

"Seven homes in the area received extensive damage and one house actually floated off its foundation and ended up sinking in the middle of the bay somewhere," said Quince Mento, with Big Island Civil Defense.

Some of the largest episodes hit hours after the first tsunami waves arrival to the islands

A couple from Alberta experienced a life threatening encounter with tsunami surge more than two hours after they thought the impact had passed.

"We heard this roar -- water swirled us around -- we were really in trouble, ended up against a tree," said Valerie Hawkins.

Elsewhere a boat reportedly sank in Honokohau Harbor. In downtown Kailua towering swells wreaked havoc on public property, shops and hotels.

"Down here along the road the pavement is torn up, the wall is even falling in, they've got all sorts of problems," said Kona resident John Messerschmidt.

"I think that we can comfortably call at least in Kailua Bay maybe 8-foot," said Mento. "It probably went 3-4 feet over the top of the pier and put about a foot or two of water in the King Kamehameha hotel."

That hotel says it will be closed at least three days. Up the coast at the Four Seasons Hualalai there was extensive damage to several areas and they say it is not a working hotel at this point. To get to sufficiently higher ground at the two-story luxury hotel, guests had spent the night at the golf club house. all guests were relocated to other hotels this morning -- some to Four Seasons on Maui or Lanai.

Guests at other Kona Hotels had evacuated vertically or to public locations.

"We stayed up at the high school up the road," said Ty Lewis, who was visiting Kona. "We had to get to higher ground. We've had the time of our lives really, to say the least."

County civil defense says so far no one has been reported missing or hurt during the tsunami. They say a public works employee was knocked unconscious with a head injury during the cleanup. He is in Kona Community Hospital.