HANALEI — Lana Shea lives in Ha’ena, but she wasn’t at her house on Monday morning.
Instead, she was buying $400 worth of groceries in Princeville to send back over to her trapped family and friends on Kauai’s North Shore.
“We evacuated over here to my friend’s house in Princeville,” she said, stacking her car trunk full of organic cereal, fruits and vegetables, and five-pound bag of rice. “My house is OK, in fact some of our friends evacuated there after they had to leave their house.”
Running water and power were questionable, she pointed out, but at least her home provided a safe and dry place to take shelter until they figure out a next step.
“We’re all wondering when the road will open up out there. It could be awhile, there are a bunch of landslides blocking everything,” she said, pointing out that the next challenge will be for residents to get to work and visitors to get home.
Down the road at the Princeville Airport, a coordinated evacuation effort involving Kauai police and fire departments, the U.S. Coast Guard, National Guard and American Red Cross pulled people out of Ha’ena and Wainiha via helicopter and zodiac.
More than 150 people were airlifted out of the area as of 3 p.m. on Monday, and another 100 evacuated by bus and water.
“I’m here for my 30th birthday,” said Jen Kowlton, from British Columbia, who was camping in Haena. “It’s been a crazy 48 hours or something, we wouldn’t have known what to do if a guy from the state didn’t come and help us.”
Campers in Ha’ena clustered in groups of sometimes eight or nine into cars and moved to higher ground, they said, until they could get out.
Joan Leigh, from Portland, said she’s been visiting Kauai for more than 40 years and has never seen anything like the storm that drenched the island.
“We were in Haena, visiting family. There’s 12 of us altogether,” she said, waiting for her family from her wheelchair at the Princeville Airport. “From the helicopter you really got to see what happened. Wow, it was amazing. Hanalei looks completely different.”
While evacuees took a moment to relax after their stint stuck on the North Shore, residents from around the island pitched in to help ferry people and supplies to and from the isolated area of Kauai.
At Anini Beach, residents gathered supplies to shuttle out to Haena and Wainiha areas via boat and Jet Ski.
“It’s just community coming together,” said Megan Fox, who is part of Malama Kauai. The organization was collecting supplies at their farm in Kilauea, but wasn’t hosting any kind of event at Anini. “It’s people coming together to help. This is what we do on Kauai.”
Among the piles of water bottles, stacks of baby diapers and paper towels, fresh fruit and other supplies, visitors Sue and Randy Long from British Columbia helped carry supplies.
“We’re retired emergency services,” Sue said, “so we decided to help out.”
Though houses were destroyed, sinkholes opened up in streets, and stray animals and large clumps of debris litter the island, the Kalihiwai Reservoir, which was nearing capacity on Saturday, remained in tact.
Monday afternoon Kuhio Highway opened back up and traffic resumed over Hanalei Bridge, and Cody Stephenson was thrilled to be across.
“I live in Waimea, teach surfing in Hanalei,” he said as he gathered snacks in Kilauea for the long drive. “I parked down right by the pier and I’m lucky my van’s OK. They had to tow me out and I got to higher ground. There was a bunch of lighting. I’ve never seen a storm like that here.”
While they were shuttling water and supplies back and forth on residents’ boats from Anini Beach, Fox said she was getting clear messages of the needs on the North Shore.
“They need fruits, veggies and coolers,” she said. “Some people have refrigeration, they just need fresh food.”
Love
The storm, shall we call it “April Showers” bring May Flowers…! ! !
Again we are reminded of the need for more food vs. new incoming population of increased visitors and those returning visitors intent on permanently staying as new residents, requiring what precious little housing is still not available.
Hurricane Ininki showed us that food can be emptied off the shelves of all Kauai grocery stores overnight waiting for the storm to hit, leaving many of us with MILITARY assisted powdered scrambled eggs, only, for breakfast and an evening meal of chopped hot dogs, only, when the food ran out, and that Aloha we were grateful for.
But are we ready to feed the population of Kauai in an extended emergency, espcecially if Oahu was impacted and their massive population needed assistance first before it got to us? Much less if Maui and/or the Big Island pulled emergency services to them before, we the more isolated “daughter” island here in the far west.
Clearly we need more storage of preserved (canned) fruits and vegetables and fish; but also more planning for “field to kitchen table” fresh fruits and vegetables and livestock, dairy, and poultry during and after an emergency.
Who or what Kauai agency is preparing and planning that emergency survivability, much less our regular day to day need of local very fresh food from Kauai instead of chemically preserved pseudo “fresh” food from Mexico and Chile, etc.
Kauai an island once sustaining outside far recipients for sugar and pineapple cannot even sustain one of our own small villages after a lengthy infrastructure emergency like hurricanes, tsunami, and flood.
Are we the proverbial EMU bird with its head in the Ground, not having to deal with reality until the flood waters make it not possible to breathe with our heads stuck in such a manner?
Can any candidates speak to this or are we just gonna surprise ourselves with starvation after the “world fails to owe us a living”.
So much cropland, plantation proven irrigateable, lies fallow, while we bring in foods from “10,000” miles away tethered to their chemical “oxygen tanks” to survive the trip out here, while fallow fields stay fallow for us…fellows…! ! !
Is it time for taller (apt.) buildings not taking up our crop lands to house the born and raised youth; and time to steer our youth via agricultural education into food farming?
Maybe we should elect a mayor from one of our farm families, and we don’t mean the Monsanto Family, nor from farms that export their foods, like seed, coffee, and cacao; but a mayor cognizant of nutritional daily requirement foods.
Mahalo,
Charles
I didn’t realize how bad Kauai was, until I saw it on the news. I think we can all thank federal assistance program. They make a difference. Let us also give some clapping of hands for our hard working politicians. They love this island so much, that many people know about Kauai. It is international. We make it happen. So very much fond of our mayor Bernard p. Carvalho Jr. Giving the mayor some clapping hands. Helpers too…