Hurricane Iniki

I n- I need to see that before we go down to Poipu Beach Park." And she's like, "I'm just gonna wait in the car." And I get out of the car, and I'm like, "Wait a second.

What's happening?" Like, the road's completely lifted and into plowing down Prince Kuhio Park and the lava rock walls, and then you're seeing the destruction that was this real trigger of, you know, Iniki, that happened when I was, like, 20 years old, 21, something like that.

And then before that, I was 12, and it was Hurricane Eva.

And m- at that time, my parents owned three restaurants, and all three of them got destroyed and wiped out.

We're having hurricanes off in the Pacific, which for the most part they do exist out there.

I was actually in Hawaii when they had Hurricane Iniki.

Oh, I'm an oldie.

But now we're starting to get them with a little more frequency in the Pacific Basin, and we are starting to feel the effects of it.

But it just got us thinking about, well, why are some of these homes, like, they don't look like they took any damage? What factors about them led to that? And so we started looking at building codes.

And my colleague, Thomas, who really took the lead on that story, I mean, he had several conversations with folks like our former mayor at the time of Hurricane Iniki and others who actually helped look at hurricane clips and getting those added to the building code.

And so I think that made a really big difference.

And of course, a lot of homes were damaged and even completely destroyed in Hurricane Iniki.

So some folks had to do full rebuilds.

And so a lot of folks, they had old roofs that weren't that strong when the Niki happened, and so they replaced them with material that worked better.

I c- I would say I began in fiction.

So when I was little, um, right after a hurricane, it was either Iniki or Eva, one of the hurricanes in Hawaii.

I was-- My family was stationed in Hawaii several times.

My dad was in the military.

The property is owned and maintained by the Royal Order of Kamehameha, Chapter 3 Kaumualii.

The park's cultural sites were damaged during Hurricane Eva in 1982 and Iniki in 1992.

Through a nonprofit, Nakahu.org, and a GoFundMe, volunteers hope to rebuild the walls and need the community's help at future events.

We have a lot more walls to be built.

Right.

This is before Iniki, right? I'm

sorry?

This is before Iniki that freed all the chickens.

Yes, right.

Yeah.

People may feel now, three weeks in, that seems like quite a while.

But I'll tell you, uh, earlier in life, I recall Hurricane Eva, and at the very beginning of my, my career, uh, uh, Iniki.

Compared to those storms, Kauai Emergency Management Agency administrator Elton Ushio says cleanup from Lowell has been quicker.

These lessons from Iniki about how the rapid effort to try to clear infrastructure actually damaged infrastructure and lengthened the recovery period.

This time, Ushio adds cleanup was more coordinated between government entities and other partners.

It's gone about as well as, you know, we can hope for, uh, after this type of storm.