 It's 1 o'clock on a Monday afternoon, so you must be watching Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Mark, and at this time we bring you science discoveries from the University of Hawaii, and today we've also got a really important message for all residents of Hawaii because my guest today is Dr. Dennis Wan, who is a faculty member at the UH Sea Grant College Program at UH, and Dennis, we're going to talk about hurricane preparedness and how people in Hawaii can get ready for the coming hurricane season. Is that correct? That is correct, and it's only a month and a half away. Scary to think that June 1st is coming very rapidly, isn't it? That's right, and the National Weather Service should be making their forecast for the hurricane season for 2018 in less than a month. Right, well I believe that particularly given the really bad hurricanes which came through the United States last year, this is a particularly timely opportunity for all residents of Hawaii as well as on the mainland to really start taking an inventory of what they have and what kind of structures they're living in. So I'm really looking forward to the day's show. I believe as the viewers can see we actually have a number of documents in front of us. Can you just briefly describe what we have here on the table? Okay, well here is the homeowners handbook to prepare for natural hazards. It started in 2007. It's gone through nine print runs with 75,000 copies, and we're in the process of creating the fourth edition of the book. Okay, and then after the Hawaii book was done, you could see the book is in ten other states and countries or territories. And I believe that you and Dara Nakamoto, both from Sea Grant, are the authors of this book. This particular one and then different Sea Grant programs took a lot of the material and adapted it to their state and country. Nice. Each book is tailored to the hazard suite and construction style for their location. And Hawaii Sea Grant is such a wonderful program. We've had people like Katie Hinson on for the King Tides, and we've had other members, Cindy Natman, for example. So Sea Grant is quite a large program as I understand it. Yes, and it's part of NOAA. People don't realize it's part of NOAA. Which is the National Oceanographic Administration and there are 33 Sea Grant programs throughout the country. So our mission is to take information that's developed in the university, research, and we bring that out into the community. So this is really important stuff for any resident, not only home owner but someone who's renting property in Hawaii. We hear a lot about sort of have a supply of water and food on board. But I think you're primarily going to talk about what hurricanes can do in terms of damaging our homes. Right. Now the book does cover, like what you said, the emergency supplies. And I just want to mention very quickly the new guidance is 14 days of non-perishable food and water. Which will be quite a challenge, particularly if we were without power for 14 days. Yeah. How can we actually make it last? But obviously sort of the survivability, as we've seen, I think you'll tell us about Puerto Rico, for example, which is really important. Sure. And right, we did go down to Puerto Rico to see some of the impacts from Hurricane Maria and also Hurricane Harvey, to see the impacts in Texas. And our major reason for going was to see how buildings performed and what we could learn and put into the fourth edition of the book to help people prepare. So when you're talking about how buildings perform under stress from a hurricane, are you an engineer? Are you a scientist? What's your background? I'm a scientist, geology and geophysics by training. And I work with a lot of structural engineers and architects. So we mentioned some damage from the previous storms. I think if we can go first to the second slide, if our image guy, here we go. So big hurricanes last year. Can you lead us through what we're seeing here is I think Puerto Rico and Hurricane Maria? Okay, right. And here's Maria making impact. And you could see the eye of the hurricane impacting the southeast portion of the island. And you could see that it's the bands are circulating counterclockwise. And the eye is that blue area. Okay. And that's where the strongest winds are. So the colors might represent the wind speed? In this case, they're representing rainfall. Okay, amount of rain. Yeah, but but the strongest winds are in the eye of the hurricane. And when the eye passes over you, initially it'll be in one direction and then in the reverse and go in the other direction. And of course, it wasn't lost on a lot of residents of Hawaii that Puerto Rico is an island. Right. It's in the tropics. So there's a similarity between Puerto Rico and the damage they suffered and potentially what could go wrong here in Hawaii. That's exactly right. And it's interesting, though, because Puerto Rico is an island just like Oahu. A lot of people think that our major lessons learned are from Puerto Rico. They are from Puerto Rico in terms of infrastructure and businesses. But in terms of housing, we learned just as much from the impacts in Texas, too. So we'll show all of that very shortly. Let's move on to the next slide then, because you're mentioning some of the damage. Okay. What we're seeing here, some very sick looking palm trees. Okay, well, what's happened here is Maria has made landfall on this section of Puerto Rico. The eye is past and the trees are blowing in different directions. So what's actually happened is the eye passes, the eye wall passes and the winds are blowing in one direction. And then it goes through the eye and then the wind reverses and goes in another direction. So you can see the strength of the winds and it's very unusual to see the trees blowing in. And I guess that is something for us to recognize that it's our whole house. It's not just the outside of the house. Right. Primarily facing southwards or eastwards that could be that's right. That's exactly right, because that's a myth that you only protect, say, the south part of the house. Every part of the house, 360 degrees, needs to be protected from a hurricane, because it could come in any direction. And presumably it's not just the change in pressure, but it's also flying debris and that's right. That's right. You'll see some of that. Great. Well, let's move on, because I know you've got a number of different examples to show us here. Okay. We have lots of these things here on Oahu and on the big island as well. That's right. Yeah. And of course, everyone, when they think about Puerto Rico, they think about the impact to the infrastructure and specifically the power transmission system. And you could see some of the impacts here. Just the very strong winds were able to shred the blades of this wind turbine. And most of the wind turbines on the south where Maria made landfall looked like this. They were in that condition. And so this is perhaps one reason why Puerto Rico is still having a lot of power problems, even though it's six months after the storm. Yes. That's one of the reasons. It's mainly their source and then also their transmissions. Yeah. The frailty of the power grid, presumably. And the next slide, I think, should emphasize as well, as Hawaii is trying to go to being completely energy independent or get our fossil fuels, what is it we're seeing here? Okay. Well, this is another important lesson, because we always talk about sustainability. And we want an adaptation. But we also want to be resilient. Okay. So the solar farm here, you know, is sustainable and adaptive. It's providing energy off fossil fuel, but it also needs to be strong also. So it could withstand a hurricane impact. And for the homeowner's handbook, in the third edition, at least, we do have a section on making sure solar panels on housing are attached properly to the roof so that they don't fly off. Yeah. So we not only do you lose power, but you also have the jack towels going into your neighbor's house, which could and there's a lot of things which could go wrong there. But this really does raise an interesting issue in terms of how does Oahu or anywhere in Hawaii become robust and be energy independent? We've seen examples here. The wind farms could get damaged. The solar power and PV can get damaged as well. And presumably also the transmission lines are at risk as well. Right. And the key is to think of this all beforehand in the design and installation. Right. So you're thinking about sustainability, adaptation and resilience, which is the part that makes everything strong to withstand a hurricane, you know, whether how it's how well is it attached and right? Yeah. And you've got some other images of other damage. I think we're going to look at buildings which did survive. Yes, this was the main reason we went to both Puerto Rico and Texas because one to find out why some buildings did well, and some just exploded. And it's very important because in Hawaii, when there's a hurricane, people will not be able to drive to another state. They have to stay in state and they have to go to a hurricane shelter or shelter in place. So there's limited shelters. So it would be preferable to shelter in place if it's strong enough. Now, why did you go to Houston? I thought somewhere like Guam where there's a lot of concrete buildings, you could have learned the same information there. You'll see very shortly because actually in terms of style construction, Houston, I mean, not Houston, we went to Rockport and Houston in Texas. Rockport is actually closer to Hawaii than Puerto Rico. In terms of it's all like the more double wall together, more asphalt, shingle ruse, more hearty siding. And we saw how those houses performed. And it gives us a good indication of how they'll perform on Hawaii. So you've shown us some wind damage. Sure. Presumably, there's a lot of rain as well. Sure. Is that correct? Yes. Is it the rainfall that is the primary culprit in terms of damaging buildings? It's off. There's the hurricane is multiple threats. And you each one by itself can be deadly. And then sometimes they all happen together. And it's equal. It's even worse. I think your next slide will show us some of the Houston damage. And this is Houston or. Okay, what actually is you're seeing here is hurricane Harvey making landfall in Rockport, Texas. So what's happening is it's going inland and then it encounters two high pressure systems and it kicks the hurricane out out into the gulf again. And then the coastline is the coastline is the pink line. Yes, land is to the left. It's oceans or the gulf is to the right. Yes. So it stalls over Houston. So what we're trying to do here is we went to two places Rockport to see the impacts of the wind and Houston to see the impacts of the flooding. And the next slide, I think we'll show some of the the issues that we're trying to deal with the total amount of water. Right, right. And a huge amount. A lot of people in Hawaii, they know about the tremendous amount of flooding over the last weekend on Kawaii, right? And even on Oahu, we on Kawaii, they received up to 28 inches of rainfall over 24 hour period. And here in Houston, it's what's happening is the heart of the hurricane has stalled for two or three days. So the the rate of rain falls almost is great, but it's over a longer period of time. And of course, it's flatter in Houston or the Gulf Coast of Texas than it is. That's that's right. No way to go, right? Yes. And so there's and it's it's over a larger area. So you could see both were historical events. This was the highest amount of rainfall from a hurricane on record in the US. And and and you could see also how it almost compares to Kawaii because Kawaii received, it's amazing that they received 28 inches of rainfall over a day just this weekend. And you could see how the impacts could be so great on Kawaii also. We've got time for one more slide before the break. And I think that that slide will show us. Okay, here is the inside of one of the buildings. Right. Okay, so this is in Houston. And part of the problem in Houston was it's so flat. There's a lot of impervious surfaces. And even if they only get one or two feet of flooding, there are a lot of areas that are built below grade. And so they flood so they may only get one or two feet of water at grade, but they'll have 15 or 20 or 30 feet of water inside the building. So this is a whole example. It's a fine example, but a horrible situation, where in what we're seeing is perhaps, you know, 20 feet of the basement of this building, yeah, was flooded. Yeah, and see, this is the typical way when a building floods and this is Kawaii is probably going to be facing this now is when a building floods, whether it be a building or a house, the first thing they do, they got to drain the water and then they got to gut the walls to where the and what you see that in that picture is what that is. I mean, this is a scary prospect that hurricane hitting Hawaii is scary. We're getting near the break time. But when we come back, I'd like to ask you, well, what can residents in Hawaii actually do to sort of protect themselves? So let me just remind the viewers, you are watching Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Mark, and we're talking about getting ready for hurricane season here with Dennis Wan, who is from the Sea Grant College Program at your age, Manoa. And we'll be back in about a minute. So join us then. I'm going to the game and it's going to be great. Early arriving for a little tailgate. I usually drink but won't be drinking today because I'm the designated driver and that's okay. It's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line, keeps them from drinking too much so we can have a great time. A little responsibility can go a long way because it's all about having fun on game day. I'm the guy you want to be. I'm the guy, say good money. I'ma say it. Let's go. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tech. Think Tech loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco and me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator and energy dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangostorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on it noon on Mondays every two weeks on Think Tech. Aloha. And welcome back to Think Tech, Hawaii Research in Manoa. I'm your host, Pete McGinnis-Marcon. This week we're really talking about how I can prepare this with Dennis Wan, who is a faculty member in the UH Sea Grant College program at Manoa. So Dennis, you've got several examples of the kinds of damage which can be done. So let's zip through some of the other images which you brought us and just talk us through some of these. Okay, let's go through this quick. This just shows Houston after Hurricane Harvey, 300,000 structures are flooded. And the reason I wanted to put this one is when we saw the aerial photos of Kauai last this over this weekend for the flooding, we saw a lot of houses that had this type of flooding, shallow flooding. And you've got cost there 150,000, 330,000 dollars. Yes. And this is a tremendous burden on a homeowner because they may still have their mortgage, then they have to pay rent because they need to move out of the house while it's being renovated, then the repair. And the key lesson learned here, because later we're going to talk about strengthening houses. But no matter how strong you strengthen your house, still have insurance when it's when it's appropriate. And many of these houses, 75% of the houses in Houston, Texas did not have flood insurance. Okay, poor people. Important lesson. Next slide. Okay. So here we're in Rockport. And you could see there's this is an aerial view. Yes. Looking down on a little neighborhood, right? So that circle ellipses a load. Yeah, that's a block, you know, a subdivision there. Hard to believe. And you could see there's four numbers there. There's some houses that near number four were completely destroyed. Some their number three had moderate damage. Two had some damage and one was virtually untouched. So very interesting within a block. Yes. There's a lot of variety. Yes. And it all has to do with how it's built or how what you could do with an existing house to make it stronger. And you can show us in the next slides, I think. Yes, we're going to go this real quick. So this is that's the house that get destroyed. Okay. Here's major damage. Next one. Moderate damage. And here's one that had virtually no damage. Hard to believe that they're so close to each other. Yes. And the key thing, again, is they found out that the ones that performed well has what's called a continuous load path and like window protection and a strong roof. Can you translate what a continuous path actually means first, please? Yeah, maybe we could go to this. Sure, let's take a look. I always like to have a demo what we have here. Okay, so this is like almost like what a house would look like. This is like a double wall house. Okay. This would be the roof, the truss or the rafter. And this is a double wall house. You could see the outside wall is like siding and the inside wall would be like dry wall. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So we're going to turn this around. So a continuous load path ties through the building codes. It ties to the truss or the rafter of the roof to the double top plate. Because if you don't have that tie, wind will lift it up and lift the roof off. Okay. And then every and then the double top plate is connected to the stud and the stud is connected to the base plate. Okay. So this is like your miniature house. All right. So the base plate is the bottom of the house? Right. Yeah. Right. Okay. So what's happening is and we're going to use Oahu as an example because Oahu and Rockport had the same style construction and they almost had the same history of building codes. Okay. So what happened on Oahu in 88, there was no connection between the roof and the and the top plate and the stud and the base plate. Okay. In 88, they required hurricane clips and then in 95, they required what's called a continuous load path where everything is tied together. So this would be like structure number one. Yeah. Where there was little damage. Well, if you and if you take these screws out, because this is going to be in the fourth edition of the book, these screws are actually supposed to represent what we call a retrofit. Okay. So if you take these screws out, it would have no connection. And that would be like that structure one. But the house that performed well, the one that had no damage would have a connection. And typically, they're put in for while the house is being built and they're hidden. But for an existing house, it's possible to retrofit them by drilling these structural screws. I was going to ask you, you had ordinances in the mid 90s, for example, but what about the poor person who built the house back in the 30s or 40s, for example. So you can do some retrofit Yes. Every house could be strengthened. It's hard to make an old house as strong as a new house, but you make it stronger. It's like it's like it's hard to make a 60 year old person as strong as a 30 year old person, but you can make them stronger than they are now. Right. Right. Okay. So and we so their retrofit options like this, using the structural screws, imagine they weren't there, then there would be no support. But you could add them as a retrofit. So this is for a double wall house and there are things you could do for a single wall house. And you mentioned also windows and things like that. Yeah. So do you put shutters on to prevent them imploding or yes, windows are window protection is very important. So if you don't have window and masking tape will not work. So if you don't have window protection, when there's a hurricane, there's not only the force of the wind, but there's debris in the wind, when born debris will impact the window, break it. And once the window breaks, there's internal pressurization. And it doubles the uplift pressure on your roof, making it more likely to fly off. So not good. Yes. So in the book, there's 12 different types of window protection we cover. And there's going to be some new methods in the fourth edition of the book that we'll put out. Now you've also brought along something else here. Okay. Sure. And tell us what this little gizmo is. Okay. Maybe we can advance one of the. Okay. All right. Okay. So we're just talked about a double wall house, but this is a single wall house. And these are the houses that are the oldest ones in Hawaii. Okay. And they're most vulnerable to hurricane impact. So you could see on the picture on the upper left. That's a house that's been retrofitted with hurricane. How do you feel about the recent attack on Syria? Was it a success? And then the picture on the right, a lot of single wall houses are called what's on post and pier structures. They're very weak from a hurricane, force winds, or an earthquake, because they don't, they don't sit on, they're not attached or just sit on the termite pan by friction. But in this picture, we actually retrofitted that to make the connection stronger. I see. And is this one of these retrofitted? Yes. One more picture, I guess. And that should do. Let me see. Could we go to there we go. So here we go. So those are the individual posts and piers. This single wall house in Pearl City is actually each post has been retrofitted to tie down the post to the concrete block. And it's very easy. You could come back here. It's very easy to put these posts in. And then you put the hole down there. And with the screw, you just drill a hole. If this is a five eight inch screw, you drill a five eight inch hole into the concrete and you use an impact driver, it goes right in. And it holds the post. Of course, there's no guarantees that any of this will prevent all of the damage, right? But at least in terms of wind damage and knowing what the drainage system is around the house as well, presumably is really important. Right. Right. Yes. So this is one of the main activities that Sea Grant does, as I understand it, that you try and inform the general public. What would an interested layperson, how would they learn more about this? You've got the manual. How do they even get a copy of this? Okay. Well, they could best to just Google University of Hawaii Sea Grant and they'll get to their to their website and they're they have a publication library. And this is the Hawaii Sea Grant College program. Yes. Okay. Google and or they could Google Google homeowner's handbook to prepare for natural hazards. And they could get a copy of the book. It's it's a free PDF. So so so they can download a free version of this PDF from anywhere presumably. Right. And as soon as the fourth edition is finished, we'll print that out. And then, like during emergency fairs or workshops, we'll give them out to the public for free. Okay. Okay. And I hope states or defense knows all about this. Yes. They are a partner in the book, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, Sydney County, Hawaii Emergency Management. All the county emergency management and civil defense or partners in the book as well as NOAA National Weather Service. But the prospects are really scary if a big hurricane hits Honolulu. So we really do appreciate you coming on the show today. And it's just to give us a little bit of the background. Obviously, homeowners can't go away and immediately prepare for the June 1st season. But this really is food for thought. Sure. Just be prepared, folks. And basically, we'll just keep our fingers crossed for this year as well. But unfortunately, as we come to the end of the show, run out of time again. So let me just remind the viewers you've been watching Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa. I've been your host, Pete McGinnis Mark and my guest today has been Dennis Wan, who is from the UHC Grant College program. And we've been talking about hurricane season. So you folks get ready because it's coming soon. Anyway, join us again next week for another exciting show. And so until then, goodbye for now.