 Bingo, we're back for the 2 o'clock on Friday. Wow, exciting. Carl Kim, our old friend, director of the National Preparedness Training Center, right here across the street, national in Hawaii. That's right. That's right. Welcome to the show, Carl. Thank you, Jay. And Mikey Washta, the meteorologist for the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center here in Honolulu. Great. I want to be a meteorologist in my next life. Welcome to the show. Thank you. OK, so we had Lane. We have to do a dichotomy, I mean, what do you call it? We have to do a discussion and analysis of what happened with Lane or what didn't happen. So Carl, you look at this stuff all the time from the lens of how can we be better prepared here and elsewhere in the world. So let's talk about Lane. What kind of a storm? What happened in Lane? How did it affect us? What is the worst case analysis? And what can we learn from it, learning from Lane? Yeah? Well, I think it's really important that when these events occur that we look back in terms of what happened, also what could have happened and what we've learned from that. And for that reason, our center, the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, which works on building capacity for state and local government throughout the nation is really interested in these types of events. One of the great things about my job is I'm surrounded by smart young people like Michael Iwashta, who's our staff meteorologist. Smile. And so I brought Michael along to talk a little bit about what happened with Lane and some of the weather lessons that we have from Lane. He has a very interesting background as well too. Okay, Mike. Yeah. So tell us about your background. How do you get to be meteorologist in the first place and for the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, which is really something, you're at the cutting edge, you know? Sure. Yeah. So thanks for having me. So my background started at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in the undergraduate meteorology program there. After that, I joined the Air Force as an Air Force meteorologist and spent seven years doing that. And once I finished my active duty Air Force service, I joined the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center as a staff meteorologist, you know, hoping to continue my service to the public in order to help build. Sounds like your service at the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center. Notice how we all roll that right off our tongue. I've been thinking about getting a musician in to help you put it to music, but that's not the show. Let's later. So how central is your work to National Disaster Preparedness Training Center? It sounds like to me, it's very central, huh? Yeah. So NPDC specializes in the natural hazards and disasters, which many of those or the majority of those focus on, you know, weather-related, meteorological-related phenomenon. So it's a very central portion of our mission. Carl said you could tell us what happened in the lane. Yeah, sure. So Hurricane Lane, as we all know, entered the Central Pacific on the 19th of August. And throughout its lifetime, it intensified to a category five, which is the maximum strength or intensity of a hurricane. Is it possible we're going to see a six later on? I mean, climate change? One day we find that climate change actually elevates the whole system. I don't think there's any official word of that right now, but, you know, nothing's impossible. So on the side that we had up earlier, it was showing the track, basically the track of Hurricane Lane throughout the Central Pacific. And the fascinating thing about that is that it went from a category five storm, which is the maximum intensity, down to a tropical cycle and was in the span of two days. So it's that fast? It's a very rapid decline, yeah. It was the second storm in our area in the Central Pacific of the season. So we're right in the middle of hurricane season right now. So it was not that we were prepared, everyone was prepared for Hurricane Lane, we'll be prepared for the rest of the season, too. Yeah, I have a question about that. So we've had Lane, we talked about Norman, Olivia, did I miss any, there was others. We've seen three or maybe four already, all coming from the same general direction, thankfully some going south of us, others going north, none of them hitting us directly, although they hit the big island pretty badly. So my question is, from the track of the storms so far this season, July, August, and from what we know about how these hurricanes are created, how they generate themselves through the east of Hawaii, can we make any predictions as to the rest of the season? Can we say there's going to be a number of others? Is this number that we've had already so large that it tells us anything? So the amount of storms that we've had up to this point does not necessarily dictate what or is not necessarily foretelling of what the rest of the season is going to be. Certain agencies within NOAA and some research agencies do produce what they call seasonal forecasts, and that's the closest that we can get to some kind of mid or long-term outlook for the entire season's timeframe. You call them up sometimes, call up NOAA, let's call NOAA today and see what we can learn from NOAA. Yeah, but I really want us to focus on Lane, I mean, if we go to that next slide, this is a really large storm too. Okay, let's see the next slide. So we've seen this, we've seen this slide, where is this from, this slide? It's been all over the news. So it's a NOAA slide, yeah? So this is a satellite image of Hurricane Lane as it was approaching Hawaii at the 150-degree latitude mark, and at this point I believe it was, like Carl mentioned, very large in size, about 300 miles across from one side to the other, and also at a category for an intensity I believe. So the significance of that, like Carl was saying, is that a lot of times we tend to focus, or as a public we tend to focus on the track, which is the center point where the center point of the storm is directed to. The impacts of the storm and the damage that can be done can expand depending on the size of the storm hundreds of miles from the center in any direction. Well this storm, it was slow moving, I remember that, Lane, and it declined rapidly, relatively speaking as you mentioned. Was there anything interesting about Lane that tells us anything about what the season is like? That it was slow moving, the fact that it declined so quickly? Yeah, so folks say on the fact that it was so slow moving, another interesting thing that occurred with Lane was the amount of rainfall that fell especially in Hawaii County, and that amount that was attributed to its slow speed and allowing the rain showers to be present over one land mass or one island in Hawaii County and so on for a prolonged period of time which increased the amount of rainfall, which led to the flooding and a lot of damage. So you start out with worrying about the speed of the winds and you wind up worrying about the quantity of rain? Yeah, definitely a lot of secondary third order effects associated with it. But yeah, if we go to the next slide, I mean if you see most of the hurricanes in this region, start in the east and then move towards us and then they come up from the south and fortunately there have only been a few direct hits that have come, is that most recently with tropical storms? Well the probability is favoris,t aren't we, we're a speck in the ocean. Well if you look at the number of storms that we've had and you know there's quite a few damaging impacts that have occurred. We always worry about the big one, don't we, the Iniki Plus kind of thing. Right, so if you go to our next slide there, actually the previous slide, if you can see this is the track of most of the storms that have come and you can see that for the most part they sort of exhibit a similar pattern in terms of where they're coming from and then turning north. I think the most damaging storms have been Iniki, Eva and I think Dot as well too. This slide suggests that we are in the center of a path of numerous hurricanes though and unless you're not including all the hurricanes on the out on the periphery it looks to me like we're we're a sitting duck in in manner of speaking right yeah and I think we brought this slide for another reason to sort of illustrate that we really are in the middle of the Pacific and so unlike other communities that are in more built-up areas we really don't have a lot of technologies and information or other communities that have experienced the storm we're we're on our own we're on our own and so and that creates a challenge in terms of forecasting yes definitely so like we saw with the rapid weakening of hurricane lane once it went on the the leeward side of the big island that I think was was a case where we like Carl was saying we don't have that much previous historical evidence of so that added to the challenge of being able to accurately forecast on that type of phenomena that type of a current well then that shall we just looking at I just wonder is there and I don't know the answer maybe nobody knows the answer is there anything about the wine island chain that protects us about the topography the mountains about the way the the wind works or the ocean works that that keeps the hurricanes away that makes it less likely they're gonna hit us it definitely plays of the topography of the islands definitely and especially the large mountains and on the big island play you know a pretty large factor in the dynamics of that going to the hurricane mainly in the form of what's called wind shear which is the variation of wind direction and speed throughout the vertical column so for for hurricane lane once it entered that area of increased wind shear that allowed it to decrease in intensity very rapidly and win sheers related to trade wins well which year is just a general term for the variation it can be related to trade wins but it's not specific to trade wins I'm pretty interesting okay so do we hit slide number five yet no we're almost there though let's go slide number five well well I think the other if we go to the next slide you want to say something about about I think yeah this is a really fascinating picture of taking from one of the from the NOAA hurricane hunters yeah so they were I did not this is from one of the National Weather Service employees but so during during the approach of hurricane lane there multiple agencies flying hurricane hunter aircraft between NOAA and the Air Force which which are reconnaissance aircraft which fly out into the eye over the eye of the storm to drop observation equipment and and measurement you know instruments which you're looking down into yeah that's not up no it's if you were looking up you'd be you'd have you'd have a problem yeah yeah down yeah you don't want to this that's not because we're in the middle of the Pacific to we have to send these aircraft out to get more real time information as to what what's happening as well too so when it happened if we drop the bomb right in right in the eye just wishful thinking right right right right okay we're ready for slide five one of the big impacts was the what was the flooding that occurred because of the size of the storm how slow moving it was the amount of moisture that it picked up the record setting amounts of rainfall I'm something like over 50 inches of rain in the Puna area which caused a lot of damage a few inches is huge yes yeah yeah four feet of rain right and what one day or something right yeah so just for a comparison that's that's how much 50 inches of rain is what a hurricane Harvey produced in Houston right right so that led to you know flooded roadways caused landslides in it in areas and so part of what we've been doing is estimating the impacts on the infrastructure not just on the roadways but to homes and businesses how do you do that girl how do you how do you make that estimate well we collect information on the damage claims and for assistance and in fact for one of the things is for debris removal I think Michael told me this morning was a hundred forty eight forty nine hundred forty nine requests for debris removal from this what just in Hawaii Connie through a volunteer organization called crisis cleanup which does all the most of the coordination for disaster and debris recovery work order requests for any kind of and usually that's roadways or is that more than roadways mostly private property yeah well take it off my front lawn sort of thing and what's good about Michael toes not he's just his meteorologist he's a big island boy and so he's got a lot of why didn't you say that before well I was trying to but I it's hard to get a word edge like you're a very different person like we know that we know that the big island you know and we always say it's the water it's the water on the big island makes people different yeah I could name names let's take a short break to think about that we'll be right back at one minute hello and welcome to out of the comfort zone I am your villainous host RB Kelly today we are playing two truths and a lie and I will tell you two truths and you will tell me which one is the lie truth number one this is a real mustache truth number two I want you to watch my show on Tuesdays at 1 p.m. so tune in and let me know which is the truth and which is the lie I'm RB Kelly without of the comfort zone and show up next Tuesday to see my mustache live hey Stan energy man here on think take Hawaii and they won't let me do political commentary so I'm stuck doing energy stuff but I really like energy stuff so I'm gonna keep on doing it so join me every Friday on Stan energy man at lunchtime at noon on my lunch hour we're gonna talk about everything energy especially if it begins with a word hydrogen we're gonna definitely be talking about it we'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner how we can make the world a better place just basically save the planet even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore we got it nailed down here so we'll see you on Friday and noon with Stan energy man well huh okay we're back we're live with Carl Kim and Michael you washed up from the national possessed and preparedness training center actually committed that to memory a long time ago Carl when we first met that's right so what was the worst case analysis what could have happened with Lane yeah what we did was a plausible worst case assessment before the storm occurred and we use this damage estimate Asian program called has us it was it's put out by FEMA and so what we did was we simulated if a category one storm hit a wahoo what are the winds in the category one storm so for a category one that we're looking at winds of 74 to 95 miles per hour that can rip the roof off your house it could and that's sustained winds so there could be gusts that are much stronger than that okay right right so if we bring up the next slide we'll show you the track that we sort of simulated the actual track is it sort of veered off to the west but what we did was that it it continued north so that it struck a wahoo and then with that we estimated the damage that could occur if I could have the next slide up and so what this program allows us to do is to estimate the number of households that would be displaced or or affected the numbers thousands that would be requiring temporary shelter we also estimated the amount of debris generated by this category one storm which would be about 459,000 tons of of debris and then the damage to thousands of buildings and then the costs associated with this which would be upwards of 3.8 billion dollars and I have to say by the way that we only looked at the wind impacts we didn't really because we didn't have time we were continuing to do this we didn't really look at the storm surge or what would happen with heavy heavy flooding on a wahoo the secondary effect well they would cause these numbers to really increase even more so this was just sort of a first pass lower you know honestly Carl why why why do I care why do I care because this would never happen to me it would never happen to my house it's gonna happen to someone else your neighbor's house but again everybody but me maybe well I think the reason I ask you that silly question is because a lot of people think that way right not gonna happen to me right right right well again part of what we do is we focus on preparedness and the things that we can do and we can actually you know improve our detection warning alert systems improve our public communications we can try to make our buildings stronger and more robust but we also need to work on recovery planning and that's a big focus of our national disaster preparedness training center and so we've been working on recovery planning not just here in Hawaii but in the Gulf Coast in Puerto Rico in other communities that have experienced these disasters that's interesting because some agencies like Seagrant College up there at UH you know they focused on how to hold your house together how to make you know structural improvements so it doesn't come apart in high winds and you're in a different place on this well a Seagrant is doing some more interesting work too on reconstruction as well so they have a interesting project on that as well too and I think there are things that we can do to not just make our homes you know stronger and safer but better siting and location outside of the hazard zone or the or the red but you're going to focus on how do you pick up sticks how do you do together again yeah yeah and we we know quite a bit about recovery if I can have the next slide so we we developed for FEMA FEMA certified recovery class that really focuses on not just the government programs that are available from FEMA from HUD from Small Business Association administration and and so forth but really the ways in which the government the communities come together in this and and what we do know about disasters recovery is that it happens in stages there's stuff that you have to do in the immediate time you have to clear the roads you have to clear the debris you have to restore you know the basic infrastructure there's also mid-range concerns you know that involve getting our systems back up and going getting our businesses working again get opening our schools and and other businesses and then as the graphic shows there's also longer term concerns about redevelopment and recovery so that we're building back better stronger in a way and so and that in that can for big disaster take many many decades and so this is part of what we've been working on at our center and developing these sorts of courses and we started doing some of this work in Waikiki and I think I told you about our Waikiki pre-disaster recovery project that we did with the Waikiki business improvement district association and other partners in Waikiki he would that with the city we're also working with the the city's office of climate change sustainability and resilience to improve disaster risk reduction and and one of the things that we found out was one of the big gaps actually is with small businesses as well too and so if I can have the next slide if you look at what happens to small businesses after disasters immediately after disaster something like 40% of small businesses won't reopen they basically fail and then a year later something like an additional 25% more businesses are subject to failure and then this failure rate is really high 75% you know fail after three years if they do not have continuity plans and so that really is the importance of what's a continuity plan insurance well part of it is insurance but part of it is really having backup systems having your data stored away having worked out agreements so we've been focusing a lot on supply chains and in the management of of resourcing and and we think this is a really important topic and if I can turn to our final focusing on small business if we get to my final slide here you know this is this comes out of our training course you know really the small businesses are really make up a large proportion of the total employment that we have and what we know is that 99% of all companies are small businesses and they employ something like 50% of of all employment and then the amount of losses for small business on a daily basis could be as much as three thousand dollars per day or for a middle-sized business of twenty thirty thousand dollars and as a consequence that has a big impact on livelihoods on jobs on so forth and in from our research what we found were the big large corporations you know they can kind of take care of themselves because they have other branches or other hotels or other located in other jurisdictions where the small businesses really we need to to work on so so we've been working together my Michael's been one of our lead developers on this to try to increase the resilience the capacity to recover after disasters especially for small businesses and so that's that's part of our capacity building work that we're engaged in more slides no I'm so okay yeah okay I do I do have some questions so problem is that most people are complacent about this they don't follow it they think it's going to be somebody else's house somebody else's small business somebody down the block but not them they firmly believe that and so they don't do anything and you can tell them all day long and they still won't do anything because they think that for some you know reason God will spare them and and that's the way they operate and I think we haven't had enough bad bad weather to really make them think about this you know I hate to say it but we need some hard lessons before people get the right idea but the what I wanted to ask you guys is this you're you're preparing for disaster and you're preparing to rebuild the the community of the economy this is not easy because you know the community economy took decades years centuries to build the way it is at the moment before a bad storm and now you say well we have to rebuild all the essential elements of that and in a matter of hours or days not so easy and and and we know that government federal and state may not be just as we expect them to be we know that people may not be as responsive as we hope they will be so you have a kind of reverse government situation how you get the government to get in there and do all the things in your plan I mean part of it is government but it's beyond that it's households it's businesses it's the whole community and part of what we did in part to really look at what could happen is you know we went to Puerto Rico and we studied what happened after Hurricane Maria and how long the recovery took and it's not just a matter of weeks or months it's going to take years we can actually look back in time and what happened with Iniki how long it took Kauai to recover after after that storm and so part of what we've been trying to do is extract the lessons from communities similar communities island communities we also face another challenge or hazard that we're located in the middle of the Pacific and we're not connected by superhighways or rail lines and it takes a lot more time for goods and equipment and so your plan is going to be real different than San Diego's plan yeah I think it has to be I think I think it has to be and I think these events these near misses their wake-up calls for us and their opportunities for us to really focus on ways in which we can build resilience and increase our capacity to not just you know weather a storm to survive a storm but if there is damaged infrastructure damaged homes damaged businesses and how we can rebuild them and so that's part of what our focus is and so you know I do hope that we can come on the show and talk about our work in Puerto Rico I was I want to do that yeah yeah because Puerto Rico is a fascinating lesson well one last one last question before we go and that is my point about reverse government you got to get government to do this stuff government has theoretically the governmental power to do things and it has the agencies police fire what have you all kinds of agencies health's whatever how do you and your plan has undoubtedly calls for action in all of those areas and it calls for individuals I don't know if you name them to come forward and be empowered and take certain specific actions they have never taken before never taken before and do those things efficiently with the right attitude and frame of mind to save people and to rebuild the society how can you cover that in a plan it must be hard how do you address that well that's other another misconception I I didn't really believe that for response for relief functions we really do rely heavily on government emergency services and so forth I don't want to take away from that important role and mission but when we talk about redevelopment or reconstruction or rebuilding that really involves it involves much more than government and actually the amount of resources that go towards rebuilding businesses and homes and really comes out of savings it comes out of insurance it comes out of other sources of beyond government and so that's a really important thing to really recognize let's go to advice to the public Michael as a meteorologist in this you know at the planning process and the analysis of Lane and other storms what would you advise the public to think about from your point of view so there's few things you know for in the in the event or in the heat of all of everything as this you know the storm and is approaching we should as a public you know heed the warnings that are put out the advisories and the warnings listen to the information that is being broadcasted and take appropriate actions that you know it is in order to protect life and you know for personal safety and property but in the longer term like Carl was talking about I think another important factor is is just the fact that you know it's gonna affect the whole community so we're in it as a whole community so so when you know in a situation where it may not directly impact yourself as an individual it's gonna impact people that you know so just keep that in mind and you know it when that does happen if it if you're not directly affected you know definitely be ready and plan to help out your neighbor help out your friend or help out someone in need so that we can all recover rebuild you know faster and in the best way possible care for each other yeah exactly yeah sometimes it's hard to do that when you're in extremists and you don't have water or food but you can still care for each other there's always a way okay Carl what do you what do you advise what do you advise people like you know small businesses what do you advise people like big businesses to do to have the right approach to this and and and and what should they expect to hear from you what should they be looking for to hear from you well we really believe in doing risk and vulnerability assessment you know looking at what your risk and exposure is you know where you're located and then also look at what happens when these disruptions occur when you have a power outage how many days can you go without power how many days can you go without customers how many days can you go without other infrastructure services and what are your backup plans and so we've been looking at different businesses and examples that have survived and what are ways in which they can become resourceful and be engaged with the community to continue to to conduct their business to keep their employees to to survive in the time of disasters and so and I think Michael has really hit on an important part of it that we really do need to think about social capital as well as financial capital and how does all of that work and so these sorts of trust relationships are also very important why do I why do I feel that we're going to be knowing you better and more over the years to come you're going to be very popular you guys and you're going to be central in our lives more than before I call Kim the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center Michael E. Washta National Disaster Preparedness Training Center thank you very much let me only add at the end here that oil and vinegar in your refrigerator is not going to replace water okay in times of crisis thank you very much girl well thank you for having us on your show thank you Michael