 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Okay, it's two o'clock on a given Friday, it's Community Matters. I'm Jay Fiedel and the guys to my left, Carl Kim and Dennis Wong, they're both from the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center across the street and at UH Manoa. Thank you, John, for coming down, appreciate it. Thank you for having us. Yeah, we're concerned though. We're concerned. We're always concerned. Yes, we're always concerned at Think Tech. We're concerned about disasters. What is a disaster that we should be concerned about, Carl? We have to be concerned about multiple hazards and threats. I mean, if you just look at what's happened over the past month, month and a half, there have been multiple hurricanes, wildfires, other types of man-made disasters as well too. So we need to be very concerned about these. Yeah, okay, so what is it telling us? We've had, you have a slide. I'd like to look at the slide with all these storms in the Caribbean. The Caribbean and then it'll be the same, I think, especially Puerto Rico. But we've had, I mean, you can call it serendipitous, but it isn't and it's not coincidence. There's an underlying feature here. I'd like to talk about it, but let's look at that slide so we can see on that slide. There it is. Yeah, it's been rather unprecedented that we've had this many storms so close together making a landfall at least on the continent. And we had Harvey at the end of August and then also Irma going into the beginning of September and then Maria and then most recently Hurricane Nate. And they've impacted many parts of Texas, the Gulf Coast, also Florida, Key West, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. And I think we need to pay particular attention to the impacts on me and Hawaii. In Hawaii, to the islands, to the island communities and I think that that's what we're here to talk about. Okay, let's talk about the word impact. You just used that word impact. What does that mean? Impact is sort of a big umbrella to cover a lot of ground. If a big storm occurs and it just passes in the middle of the ocean and no one is really impacted. No one is really hurt or killed or people don't lose their homes or businesses or their lives are not disrupted. It's just a natural event, right? It's when people are killed or when losses occur to society that we need to be concerned about. And we're seeing literally billions of dollars of losses and also many people being killed and hurt and their lives being seriously disrupted. Give us the flavor of how that happens. What gets disrupted? What is destroyed? How do people die? What's the process of the weather doing this, wrecking this damage on us? Well, hurricanes involve many, many different types of harm causing elements. I mean, the high winds, the potential for flooding, flooding from storm surge, from heavy rainfall. And then there's also the secondary impacts associated with that because the power is out, because food spoils, because there's hazmat releases into the environment. There are many, many ways in which people can be hurt. And so we need to be increasingly vigilant about just these types of hazards and threats and prepare for them. Yeah, prepare for them. Dennis, you're teaching preparedness, aren't you? You're out there. That's right. We do a lot of community outreach at the University of Hawaii Sea Grant. And we do- Who do you teach? Well, it's not really a lot of students or graduates and it's more the community. It's homeowners. We go out, you know, neighborhood boards, emergency workshops, and church groups. So you're reaching out. You're saying, can I come to your neighborhood board meeting? I have a few things I'd like to tell you about. That's right. And there's a lot of lessons to be learned about preparedness for the community. What kind of reaction do you get? I mean, this is a serious concern that I have, is that people are, what's the word? They're nonchalant about this. They don't really integrate the risk or the solution. And you can tell them all about what to worry about but they're not really worried, right? Yeah, there is a lot of people that are nonchalant. I think the percentage is higher on Oahu than the other islands because we do workshops on all the islands. And there are only some people who are very proactive and prepared and then there are some that are receptive to the message and then there's a large group that we call the skeptics. They're very hard to reach. But with these events, like Carl's gonna talk about, these are all lessons learned and they can happen in Hawaii. Yeah, well, you know what they say? They say this, they say, Repetitio Mater Studiorum, which is in Latin. Repetition is the mother of study. Sometimes for the guys who don't listen, you have to repeat it a few times. So is this going to happen to us? Why do you feel that it's going to happen to us? Maybe it's not going to happen to us. That's really a tough question to say. We know that it's going to happen to us, but exactly when and what are the conditions? And it's very, very difficult to predict and estimate exactly when it will occur. I would like to add to that too. I think it's the National Weather Service. It's always says it's going to happen. It's only a matter of when. And if you look at this picture of the activity, you see three major hurricanes in the Atlantic in 2017, a record number of activity as Carl mentioned. Same thing happened in Hawaii in 2015. The most number of tropical cyclones. Hold it up so that you can see it on the monitor. See, look at the monitor. That's it, you've got it. Right. And we're very fortunate that there were 16, a record number of tropical cyclones in the Pacific in 2015 all managed to miss us. And what's happened is when it's active in the Pacific, it's less active in the Atlantic and it switches back and forth over a multi-yearly period. So now the Atlantic's getting a lot of activity. Pacific has been relatively quiet this year and then it'll switch back again. I say something like that, I got to knock wood. You know, my old saying, and I say it all the time, is look at this beautiful day, beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, trade winds are blowing gently, one day closer to that storm. So it's not climate change, is it Carl? I get asked this question all the time. So I have, I brought a slide, the big picture. Can I have the next slide up there? Not that one, the previous one? Well, I guess we don't have a big picture. That's a big picture. The big picture is this picture. Of course, the climate is changing. There are many different causes for it. I mean, changes in nature is forcing the changes. We have man-made causes of this as well too. That's definitely related to the oscillations that are occurring, El Mino, I think we're moving into a La Nina phase now. But that's also related to synoptic events, like these tropical cyclones we've been seeing, as well as other hurricanes and so forth. But generally, as we were talking before, it's the impacts of these local impacts, the flooding, the high winds, the heavy rainfall, the wildfire, that really causes the impact and the harm. And so to say yes, climate change is affecting things, but it's affecting everything. It's very, very difficult, however, to make the connection between changes in the climate and any one specific event, because there are multiple things related to this. But you have to see it as a global process. Yes, yes. You have to see the Earth as an organic, sort of organic mothership of nature and environment and anything that we do to throw it off balance is gonna have secondary effect, ripple effects. And one of those ripple effects are these storms. Yeah, yeah, and I think this is what's really important to think about. There are natural events and there are man-made events as well, too. And so could I have the next slide up there? Because when I agreed to do this show some time ago, we were still thinking about hurricane Harvey and the impacts of that. And it was really an unprecedented, it's short, maybe in the National Weather Service said, this is unprecedented and impacts are unknown and beyond anything experienced. The other thing that I wanna point to is that the, and this goes back to your question about the impacts itself, this was a tremendous amount of rain. I think in two days there was something like nine trillion gallons of water that fell on Houston and that metropolitan area. That's the equivalent of a cube that's four miles square and two miles high. If I can have that slide back up again, you can see how much rain this was. But the other thing that exacerbated and made the impact so much worse was all the pavement, all the development that has occurred. The bottom part of the slide shows the amount of development that's occurred between 1940 and the present. And so what's ended up happening is we've created way more impervious surface, way more potential for flooding and all this water couldn't be absorbed by the ground and many, many more people were impacted. That's why they lost their homes, they lost their businesses. It doesn't necessarily matter about the wind. It doesn't matter about, oh, I don't know, kinds of things that happen in hurricanes per se. Just water will do it. Yeah, but again, the point that I'm trying to make, it also has to do with our planning, our development, where we're developing, how we're developing and many other factors that are really under our control. And so we can do a better job to make communities safer and more resilient by doing better planning and design and siding and so forth. But I think our real concern has to do with the threats and hazards that we're seeing right now in Puerto Rico. We have to learn and you guys are taking a trip there to Puerto Rico to figure out how it worked, what the physical process was so that we can deal with it better as and when it happens here. And then we will also, after the break, we'll talk about what we can do, what you can do, what we can do, what the community can do to get the odds better. Fact is that there's gonna be damage, there's gonna be impact, there's gonna be probably, in a bad storm, there's gonna be loss of life, there's gonna be loss, huge property damage and all that. And so all we can hope to do is ameliorate it. We can't stave it off completely and that's the interesting part. That's the part where you're taking bets, you're taking a gamble that the things that you recommend, the things you train people to do will have a leveraged effect in protecting them, but you can't protect them immediately. And if they do nothing, if they don't listen, if they're nonchalant about it, it'll be worse for them. Let's take a short break, we'll come right back. Aloha, my name is Mark Shklav. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea comes on every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join us. I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii. Not just law, love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea, Aloha. We're back we're live with Carl Kim, National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, Dennis Wong, UH Sea Grant College, and also in the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, talking about all these storms, about climate change, about what Hawaii can do and how the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center has huge presence nationally right here in Hawaii across the street from our studio. And so I guess the first thing I'd like to know is about your trip of investigation and discovery to Puerto Rico, which got hit the worst of any of these islands and storms, yeah. If we're working on it, maybe Dennis can give a little something about. Okay, we're actually gonna try and visit Texas and Puerto Rico and Florida, but waiting for Puerto Rico to stabilize it still has a lack of electricity, water, and we'll show some pictures of that shortly. Our next trip is probably gonna go to Rockport, where Harvey made landfall. It's ground zero, a category four hurricane at the point, and we have one picture to show here, right here. Someone could zoom in onto that. Yeah, that's it. Okay, there we go. Okay, what we're trying to show in this one is there are houses that are totally fine and there are houses that have been blown up. Okay, and we're gonna find out exactly what differentiates the buildings that were, the houses that were destroyed and the ones that were fine. We think it's related to the building code and the load path and the protection of the envelope. And then we're gonna try and get some retrofit options for homeowners and create the older houses to make them as strong as those houses that did well in Harvey. And we're gonna try and put it in the fourth edition of the homeowner's handbook. Yeah, I wanna clear one point though, is that when this water came in, it wasn't a swirling river of water, it was merely a lot of water, right? Okay, in this location, you're having water and wind, okay? And at this location, the primary impact is the wind, that's destroying the houses right here. They had around four or five feet of water in this location and there's some places that are gonna, water impact's gonna be worse like in Houston and we can go to that later if you'd like. Yeah, so you can learn from what happens there. And this is landfall. When the storm comes ashore, this is the most vulnerable place if you're gonna examine them, how it comes ashore and what it does. When it gets inland, it's not gonna be as serious as the picture you just showed, am I right? Yeah, well, it depends. The hurricane is a triple threat. It's the wind, the coastal storm surge, so that's the part near the coast and then there could be inland flooding from just a lot of rain coming just, that's what happened in Houston. If you have Oahu and you have these canals and streams coming down from the mountains, that's a collector of water up there. If we had the kind of storm they had, it would, huge volumes of water would travel down and down toward the ocean, I suppose. And we'd all have a lot of water on our hands, right? And with that kind of water, and if there was wind, and there usually is wind for us, we'd have this kind of damage, huh? Would it be heavier at the shore? It could be, but the key is how quickly the system is moving, because Harvey just stalled over Houston and that's why it dumped 50 inches of rain there. So that's another part, isn't it? You can't really predict how these storms are gonna work. You can't predict the exact path, you can't predict the exact force. You can measure it as it happens, but you can't predict it. But I think that there are really very valuable lessons that come from looking at the damage that occurred, looking at the conditions, looking at the building, the building technologies that were applied, and that's part of what we do at the center. We try to extract these important lessons about what worked and what failed and then try to make our cities, our structures more resilient. Give me an example. I mean, let's take that picture where the houses have been largely destroyed. So you're gonna learn stuff when you go look at that. You're gonna see what houses survive better and you can figure out why. Is that, you're gonna change your course material? You're gonna change your advice to the public based on what you learn there? Well, I think there's many elements. Dennis was the author of the, you can talk a bit about the homeowner's guide for this. And there are certain things you can do to the structure to make it stronger. There are also big questions about siding and is it located in the right location? Can you, are there things that you could do to the site itself to make it safer? You think grades of soil puts a wall or a fence or a fence containing structure? Landscaping, a whole range of things that can't be done. Yeah, and in terms of feeding the courses, yeah, the information we collect will feed the courses. There's so many courses though. It's, I mean, they have an evacuation planning course. And in terms of building stronger, the stronger you build, and if you're outside of a flood zone, you could shelter in place. And that's part of your evacuation plan. So some of these concepts, they're all indirectly related, but very, very importantly related. And so a lot of the material we learn will be feeding their courses and then they'll also be delivering those courses in that location where the impacts were. So what we're trying to do is to bring together atmospheric scientists, coastal engineers, people that work on buildings and structures, people that work on siting and landscape architecture, and bring all of these different disciplines together so that we can better understand what can be done to make our structures and our communities more safe and resilient. That's what our center does. Now, one of the things in Puerto Rico that made it problematic, and you can see what happens when all the lights go off, you wanna hold that one up when the lights were on. Yeah, that's where the lights are on, yeah? On the top. Oh, I'm sorry. It's five days before. And five days after. And five days after, yes. You can see what happens. Yeah, so even now, there's only roughly around 30 or 40% of the electricity that's up in Puerto Rico. San Juan is up there. Yes, it's very top right, yeah. And then Miwes and Ponzi and Aracibo is on the north part, yeah. Three and a half million people. But one of the things that came out about Puerto Rico was that they were unprepared, that they had no real plan, and their structures were flimsy. Where do we stand on the scale of strong versus flimsy? Well, I think we're in very good condition compared to Puerto Rico. I mean, we have a stronger building code. It was modified in Anahu in 85 after EVA in 82 is modified in 95 after Niki in 92. And it's being modified again. So it's stronger. The key though is not only building codes, but it's also personal preparedness. And if I could just mention one thing, you know, a lot of people in Puerto Rico are without electricity on water or medications. The new guidance for Hawaii is 14 days of non-perishable food and water. So that's changed. It used to be seven days, and now it's 14 days. And people say, why 14 days? Because it takes a long time to recover and when something like this happens. Do you have 14 days worth of food in your house? No, I told my wife. Yeah, but there's a way to do it. Some tips we provide and the best way to create your emergency supplies. Yeah, well, I mean, the thing is that if you want to do this right, if you want to take all the advice and build a retaining wall and change the landscaping and buy not 14, but 28 days to be careful and have all that food there, which doesn't last forever. I mean, some of it, you know, if there's no storm, some of it is gonna be wasted. Well, yeah. And generally, batting down the hatches, that's gonna cost you some bucks. So what do you say to the guy says, you know, Carl, I can't afford doing all that stuff you're suggesting. It's just I don't have the money for that. What do you say to him? Yeah, that is a problem. That is a challenge. And so I think what we have to do is to first raise awareness about the potential threat and hazard. And then I think we should also be looking at other strategies for helping or assisting people in need. And what disasters do is they magnify the existing strengths and weaknesses of a particular community. Yes, absolutely. And we need to be cognizant of those sorts of vulnerabilities that exist in our community and think about ways in which we can prepare for that. Because again, as we say, it's not if but when. Yeah. Well, first thing is, if you wanna survive food and water and all that, and then get electricity somehow, solar would help and transportation and communication, all these things you have to rebuild. And you have to assume as in these storms in the Caribbean that all these systems will be down. So you say seven days or 14 days, I say 28 because I'm not so sure that we're gonna get help from far away places in seven or 14 days. And we're gonna be on our own and we're gonna have complete failure. And so the question is, how do you see in a sort of an optimal way, with all these steps taken by hopefully a critical mass of people in the community and government functioning properly or at least getting its act together, as soon thereafter as possible with appropriate help from the military, I hope, and maybe from some sort of airlift arrangement from the mainland. If the mainland hasn't been damaged to the point where it can't help. But how do you see the thing coming back together? One of the steps in the recovery of a community back to viability, if you will. The most important lesson that's coming out of Puerto Rico right now for us has to do with the distribution networks. I mean, they can get stuff to the port, they can airdrop things to central locations and so forth, but it's very, very difficult to get out to the other more remote parts of the community. And I think that those are really important lessons for us to pay particular attention to. How are we gonna get food, water, supplies out to the last mile? Yeah, who does it? Yeah. Who does it? I mean, if we started this right now, I mean, the recovery process, who would be, first responder may not be the right word in this context, but who would have to step forward to make this recovery healing process happen? Where does that come from? Does it come from the state? Does it come from FEMA? Does it come from the, what do you call it, Hawaii Emergency Management Organization? Yes, does it come from you guys? Where does it come from? It comes from everyone. It's the whole community. That's where FEMA preaches now. Who calls the shots though, Dennis? Well, who calls the shots? I mean, people used to think it used to be top down, but really, people find that the first responders are often the person's neighbor or their family. And in terms of rapid recovery, the best thing to recover quickly is to prepare well beforehand. And it doesn't take a lot of, you're saying 28 days, but we don't need the guidance as 14. And we have some tips for people that, like for supplies, for instance, I never buy things in my emergency supplies that I'm not gonna consume. So if I don't eat Vienna sausage, I'm not gonna put it in my emergency supply kit. Because if I do, it's just gonna expire and then throw it in the toss away. I also buy things that have a long shelf life. Peanut butter. Peanut butter? Peanut butter only has a shelf life of a year, if you've looked at it. I buy things that have a shelf life of three, four. You know what I get out of this though, if everybody takes the advice, and all the agencies have plans, and I know you guys are involved in this, and the agencies talk to each other, and developing the plans, then when the time comes, you don't need one person in charge or even one agency. If they all follow what's in the plan, then that takes us to recovery. Am I right? How do you see that working? There's a certain amount of that that I think is right that you're saying, but I also believe that there is the power of self-organization or self-organizing forces, and we should really think about that as well, too, that it's not just having a plan because the plan is often out of date right away, and so we need to be able to make adjustments, and so there's a tension that I think between trying to have everything planned and laid out beforehand versus empowering and being flexible and being able to adjust to the real needs and the requirements. So it's a state of mind. So that's probably what you're teaching, at least in part in these courses. What do you tell people? Tell them now, tell camera one. What are you telling them about state of mind? It happens. Yeah, well, the key thing, especially for skeptics or those people in nonchalant is they have to really understand the risk. They have to have some type of sense of urgency, and then that's the first point, and then preparedness is really not really that hard. It's just doing a lot of little things that don't take much effort. In terms of preparing your house, I just tell people, look at all the people that spend a lot of thousands of dollars doing home improvements like in their kitchen, their living room, they spend like five or 10% of that on strengthening your house, and you'll be much better at it. That's good advice, yeah. We didn't need those new cabinets, honestly. Well, remember, make it strong, then pretty. Thank you. Okay, it's time for you to close, Carl. What would you leave people with? Well, I'm an urban planning professor, so I believe in not just making plans, but also really thinking about the things that you can do that make the community stronger. So much of it, as Dennis has been talking about, is really investing in our physical infrastructure, making sure that our buildings, our structures are strong and robust. But I'd also like you to consider and think about our social infrastructure as well, too. The relations with our neighbors, the relations with our community. We talk about social capital. I mean, we know that people will help their family members. We know that friends will generally help friends, but where we wanna get to is where strangers will help strangers, and that's the part of what will keep us together as an island in the most remote location in a place that's exposed to multiple hazards and threats. That's a great, great point, Carl. Thank you so much, Carl. Thank you, Dennis. It's been a great discussion. And yes, in those times, you are your brother's keeper. Yeah. Thanks so much.