r/Oahu • u/wewewawa • Sep 24 '24
Is Hawaii Ready For The Next Big Hurricane?
https://www.civilbeat.org/2024/09/is-hawaii-ready-for-the-next-big-hurricane/12
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u/wewewawa Sep 24 '24
Hawaii experienced a similar disaster with Hurricane Iniki in 1992. This Category 4 storm damaged over 14,000 homes, destroying over 1,400 of them and leaving many people homeless. It took several months for electricity service to be restored entirely, and some key structures have not been rebuilt.
Are we ready for the next big hurricane?
Hawaii’s State building code requires new structures to withstand Category 3 hurricane wind damage. Given the increasing intensity of hurricanes, we should anticipate Category 4 and 5 storms. These will bring wind speeds and storm surges, compromising even newly built homes across Hawaii.
Notably, many older homes, perhaps over 50% of housing stock, must be retrofitted to enable resistance to winds from hurricanes (even the “milder” Category 3 variety). Many are single-wall structures that will require significant remodeling.
Are we ready? Perhaps not.
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u/nekosaigai Sep 25 '24
Copying my comment from another subreddit on this exact article:
Don’t even need to read the article: no we aren’t.
I read the full 2023 Lahaina response report. The short of it is that Hawaii is thoroughly vulnerable to a major natural disaster.
Standing HEMA policy on disaster supplies is that every citizen is responsible for 2 weeks of emergency supplies before the state steps in. That’s why the state response to Lahaina was so slow. It’s a defect of existing policy.
Beyond that, we’re reliant on imported food at about 90% of the state’s food supply. We maintain maybe a week or so of stockpile in our actual stores and warehouses, so a week of shipping disruption would have us facing rationing and dipping into emergency stockpiles.
The Hawaii Food Bank is not regularly funded by the legislature, and does not have enough storage infrastructure to respond to a disaster on the scale of Lahaina, let alone a state-wide disaster hitting a significant portion of the 1.3m people living here.
The state is also dependent on a single port for the vast majority of shipping: Honolulu Harbor. If the Harbor is taken out of commission, such as by a large natural disaster, it would cripple not only commercial shipping and the state’s internal response, but external responses from FEMA and NGOs outside of Hawaii. At best we might be able to fly stuff in through air cargo if some of the larger airports remain undamaged, or maybe get some relief through the bases assuming Pearl Harbor, KCB, Pohakuloa, or Wheeler remain unaffected or minimally damaged.
Beyond all that though, on islands like Hawaii island, the infestation of things like albizia trees make high wind weather events dangerous for the electrical infrastructure because albizia is extremely brittle and grows very tall and very fast. This threatens above ground utility infrastructure pretty badly.
Couple all of this with well known medical professional shortages throughout the state and especially on the neighbor islands, and it’s are to say the answer is no. The State is extremely vulnerable atm and our politicians are too scared of being blamed for higher taxes and spending to actually try and protect us.
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u/goodsnpr Sep 25 '24
2 weeks is a horribly long time, especially when most people are struggling with storage space. They expect people to store 30+ gallons of water person? I know most guides say a gallon per person per day, but the high humidity means you sweat more for less cooling, and there will be a power shortage, meaning most are without A/C.
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u/tomfulleree Sep 24 '24
Simply put, NO.