I attended the Disaster Preparedness and Food System Resilience in Hawaii last Thursday that Civil Beat cosponsored. Here are my principal takeaways:

The first calls from Chad Buck, who handled much of the logistics for the Lahaina fire, was surprisingly to Costco and Sam’s Club for shipping containers of water to be diverted to Maui. That told me who has supplies. The calls were not to the state, the feds or to Maui County.

This was bad news. This is similar to the book on logistics about how Walmart positions its distribution centers and trucks on the mainland for disasters but it uses trucks, not ships to get the supplies to affected areas (e.g., Hurricane Katrina. Recommended reading: “The Rule of Logistics: Walmart and the Architecture of Fulfillment” by Jesse LeCavalier).

The call by all three panelists for a change in the Hawaii State Legislature as a fundamental means of resilience and disaster preparation will be enormously difficult because the last time the entire Legislature was changed was in 1954 when a “blue wave” happened. It took the returning World War II veterans and eight years of intense background work with disenfranchised voters led by John Burns.

Looking around the room at the disaster/resilience event, I didn’t think many of those in attendance had that commitment or stamina. We are still living with the consequences of their success.

(My father and some of his brothers served in the 100th and 442nd battalions, two of whom died in the war; my uncle served in military intelligence. Recommended reading: Harvard Political Review, April 12, 2017, by Dawn Peng.)

There was a call for communities to organize at the event, but no particular model for doing this was proposed.

Tualatin, a suburb in Portland, Oregon, has community response teams. One of my classmates from a university in Oregon said she is the leader for her neighborhood.

She recommended that I buy construction gloves (to remove debris if I’m buried under the roof), a whistle (so that a rescue can find me) and a tarp with spikes to fasten to the ground (in case my roof is not there any longer but there is a wall still standing that I can tack the tarp to for shelter and spike it to the ground).

She said to store these next to my bed, which I have done. 

The Tualatin community resilience teams are all volunteer and equipped with communications — I think a shortwave radio — and other devices. They train and coordinate with their neighborhoods, including undergoing periodic emergency response training.

The Disaster Preparedness and Food System Resilience event was stunning in what it revealed from community leaders of where we are in preparations. Chad Buck went so far as to say that, of those surveyed in Lahaina recently whether they had the 14 days of food and water, the majority said they were stocked up when they actually were not.

I rotate my supplies every two years. The 14 days is a rough estimate, but it could be up to 30 days or longer since supplies have to be gathered and loaded on the mainland, a ship has to be found and loaded, travel to Hawaii (about 10 days if no storms), hoping there is still a pier, and then unloaded in Hawaii, if the container cranes are still working at the pier.

If they are not, the state has one mobile crane that can be used, which could take days for one ship carrying hundreds of containers. The containers must then be trucked to sites on Oahu for distribution.

This is likely the reason why the City and County of Honolulu deputy emergency management official on the panel stressed that we must all be prepared personally and not rely on the various levels of government. And, of course, the relief effort in Lahaina showed this to be true as Mr. Buck pointed out in great detail.

Quite a surprise for a disaster preparedness and resilience event in Hawaii. Turns out there isn’t any of either.