 Okay, Energy 808, The Cutting Edge, and we're going to talk today about the recovering situation in Kauai with our guest, Meena Morita. Meena, wonderful to have you on the show. You're the perfect guest for this discussion. Aloha. Hi. Aloha, Jay. Thanks for having me, and it's been a while. Yeah, I missed you. I said, you know, Kauai is always called the Suffrakingdom, right? And because we're so far removed from Oahu and not going to pick you that bread. You know, one time I wanted to do a movie, actually, called Insula Drift with the proposition that not only Kauai, but all the islands were actually drifting away from each other. People didn't really understand that. They thought, no, the islands don't drift, the islands are pretty much in the same place they used to be, but it was a conceptual idea. The idea is that, you know, socially, culturally, the islands each had their own style and personality and they saw their relationship with the other islands, maybe it's not as close as it used to be in the day of the steamers. You remember the steamers? Or in the day when you could take an airline, you know, for 20 bucks, it's not that long ago. Or when you had the prospect of super ferry, for example, until that dreadful day, you know, willy-willy. But anyway, point is that the islands are not as close as they used to be, and that's why we have to check up on them. That's why we have to talk to you and find out what is going on in Kauai as well as the other islands. Well, I think, you know, part of the concern is not only the islands themselves are becoming more insular, but also areas on the island becoming more regional. And, you know, definitely you see it politically on the big island with East Hawaii and West Hawaii. I think you have some real physical constraints on Maui between West Maui and especially Central Maui. And, you know, always that isolation of East Maui, the Hana to Kaupo area. And the same thing is happening on Kauai. You have a kind of a North Shore divide from the west side of the island. And I think it's been exacerbated by the echo rains and again by the August tropical storm rain flooding, where now the northern side of the island part of it is isolated and only accessible by the convoy going in and out daily. Yeah, I agree with you absolutely. And what is remarkable about all that is that, presumably, we can communicate with each other person to person easier now than ever before in the world. And yet, you're right. The islands have become regional. There are parts of the islands that don't connect with other parts of the islands. If you go back to Maui in the days of Noka'oi and Lucky Live Hawaii and all those books and, you know, the literature that developed around the way these islands, the way life on these islands took place, that was a lot closer. People were a lot closer to each other on the islands and among the islands. But something has changed. I think you put your finger on a really important sea change. Well, I think part of it is, you know, just the personal relationships, you know, that kind of interpersonal contact face to face, whether it was through competition, you know, the different sports clubs on the island, getting that. You know, it certainly was more personalized than what you have now. And it says she, you know, given the cost of living and many families having multiple jobs. Yeah, it's true. True. You know, I had the same, my wife and I went to the big island a couple of months ago. Well, maybe more like one month ago. And we felt the same feeling that, you know, Calico Cua was a long way from Waimea. And Waimea was a long way from Hilo and so forth. And South Point was a long way from anywhere. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I think a friend told me a long, long time ago when we were talking about Lanai and all of the social, cultural, economic changes that were happening on Lanai. And he said, you know, basically there was a larger sense of community during the plantation time. Because, you know, unless it was the peak season, everybody was pretty much on the same schedule. And, you know, it wasn't a 24 seven operation. People usually had the weekends off to spend with their family and within the community. And now we have a different economy with the visitor industry where it's basically 24 seven. And so that common time to take off and participate either in their family or within their community has definitely changed how we interact with each other. Yeah, sure. And when you look back to plantations, you know, certainly there were quality of life issues on the plantations. But the plantations were a binding social platform for so many people. They had so much in common because they all, you know, lived on that platform. That platform doesn't exist anymore. And we're being taken in different directions now. Right, right. Yep. So let's talk about Kawhi for a minute. Let's talk about, you know, you guys had a flood there. We've had other weather since. But you know, one thing that really interests me about looking at Kawhi today with you is that, you know, we forget, we forget what happened. We forget about Iniki and Eva. We forget what happened before we, we, we move on into the future without really having a recollection of the past. And I think to fully understand this and connect the dots and see the sea change, I always use that term. We have to remember what happened before. So let's, let's refresh on, on the floods in Kawhi, but only what, 90 days ago, 120 days ago. What happened there? And, and how did you observe that? I myself was affected and I chose to be evacuated. And it was only when I was up in the air and I could see what was happening to the Hanalei River that I knew that my property wasn't going to be further affected. But what happened was, you know, it was just a deluge in April. And my understanding was there was this persistent, huge rain cell thunderstorm that was directly over the North Shore area of Kawhi where, you know, you had record rainfall within the North Shore area, especially, and in these areas, especially as you go further towards the Haina area, these river valleys are really narrow. And so the minor rain that has come down in that area bringing a lot of debris with it, you know, just fogged up streams, created barriers. You know, in one instance in the Hanalei area, I think the high tide exacerbated the ability for the water to flow to the ocean and, again, backed up in Hanalei town. So, you know, in areas that usually have minimal flooding, you had, you know, three to four feet of water. It just seemed so long ago. Well, you know, the thing about it is you say three, four feet of water and certainly we had plenty of water on a big island with lane. That is way more than these hurricanes deposited on the mainland, it seems like to me. When we get, you know, 40 inches plus in 24 hours, that's serious rain. You never hear that much rain happening in the storms on the mainland. Right. So I think, you know, a lot of it is trying to understand these weather patterns because now we know, you know, what we want. If we're going to be hit by these storms, we want them to move through quickly and, you know, and how these shears and pressure systems affect the weather now, causing them to stall over the islands now and how devastating that can be. Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting that, you know, one would think that the, what do you call it, the governmental agencies, federal and state that look over the weather for us would know that we would have known these principles like forever. But we, I think we're all learning together and your point a minute ago about the wind shear, that's an important lesson. And, you know, the fact that we had trades that were blowing at some, you know, regular rate during lane was an important factor for pushing lane to the south and getting it off our back. I didn't know that before. I guess maybe other people did. I think in general, the public now knows the point you're making, the public now knows that wind shear is your friend. But I think, you know, the other side that people have to understand, too, is the impact of climate change and the fact that we know that the occurrence of trade winds is diminishing. Yes. You know, so where we could count on the trade winds before, you know, the systems are changing where we can't now. Yes. Well, I think some people might, you know, hear about all these, I was watching Tube last night and actually it was not, it was the New York Times weather report, which is actually a video weather report that you can catch on the New York Times, something like what you would see on the weather segment of a local news channel. And they were talking about the, they were talking about the storms that were coming into the east coast, into what is it, South Carolina, from, well, off Africa. And talking about how that, you know, that could be as much as a category four storm that's really dangerous. And it struck me that a few years ago, we didn't have this many storms and that now we seem to have them all the time. Now, one school of thought might be, well, we didn't know enough. We didn't have meteorologists with all these sophisticated computer tools and sensors out there and, you know, all the ways they have of gaining data so that they can track these storms. But I'm not sure that's it. I think these storms did not exist in the same number a few years ago. I think it's easy to come to the logical, rational, data driven conclusion that we have more storms now than we've had before and in greater frequency and greater strength for that matter. You know, category four, every time you look at the category four, this didn't happen five years ago. And, you know, I almost think that some people, even in the meteorological department, are reluctant to lay it at the doorstep of climate change. But it is to me, I don't know how you feel, but to me it is clearly and absolutely climate change, no? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I live along near the Honolulu River and, you know, back in 1995, I went through 300-year storms in a period of 90 days, you know, and some might say that was pretty unusual. But basically, we're getting 100-year storms every year now, sometimes a couple times a year. And then, you know, this was supposed, the April flooding was supposed to be a 100-year flood. I mean, a 500-year flood, you know, and that was in April. And then we get hit, again, by the tropical storm, Maine, and, you know, that's another beyond, you know, what they might have categorized earlier as a 250-year flood. It's crazy. It's going faster and faster, yeah. Well, Meena, when we come back, because Meena Merida, former chair of the PUC, former legislator in energy, which means environment, too, when we come back, I would like to talk about what this teaches us for the future, what we can expect for the future in terms of frequency and extreme weather. And I'd like to look at, at least for a moment, the Pacific Islands and Tahiti and all these other places in the Pacific as, you know, tidings of the future, canaries in the coal mine, if you will, right after this break. We'll be right back with Meena Merida. And Aloha. My name is Calvin Griffin, the host of Hawaiian Uniform. And every Friday at 11 o'clock here on Think Tech Hawaii, we bring you the latest on what's happening within the military community. And we also invite all your response to things that's happening here. For those of you who haven't seen the program before, again, we invite your participation. We're here to give information, not disinformation. And we always enjoy response from the public. But join us here, Hawaiian Uniform, Fridays, 11 a.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii. Aloha. Hi, I'm Pete McGinnis-Mark. And every Monday at one o'clock, I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Research in Munna. And at that program, we bring to you a whole range of new scientific results from the university, ranging from everything from exploring the solar system to looking at the earth from space, going underwater, talking about earthquakes and volcanoes, and other things which have a direct relevance, not only to Hawaii, but also to our economy. So please try and join me one o'clock on a Monday afternoon to Think Tech Hawaii's Research in Munna. And see you then. Okay, we're back, we're live on Energy 808, The Cutting Edge, with Meena Merida. We're talking about the flood recovery situation in Kauai. One more point of background we should cover, at least tangentially, with respect to climate change, is that Hawaii so far has been really lucky. We've had floods in Kauai, as we'll talk about. We've had floods in the big islands, certainly. We'll have more of that. And we are, at the same time, having the sea change of sea level rise. And I want to add that we've had a number of shows involving weather and resilience organizations of various kinds, federal, state, research. Talk about the Pacific Islands. And a lot of the Pacific Islands are having serious trouble, because they're having sea level rise, their water tables are upset, their temperatures are higher, their food sources are less reliable. And I heard today that this is happening also in Tahiti, in French Polynesia, where sea level rise is actually having an effect on French Polynesia. So how much time will it be before these things, you know, home in on Hawaii? And we have not only these floods, but not only the, you know, the gradual sea level rise, but other examples of the effects of climate change, right here to the point where it becomes a much more serious business for us. Nothing is going to stop it. And the world right now is not doing a whole lot to stop it. The United States is doing very little to stop it. So it will be coming. And you can feel it. You can see it. You can touch it and taste it. So tell us about the experience in Kauai, I mean, you know, I think it's really difficult right now on the North Shore of Kauai because, you know, people are really thinking about long-range planning efforts and how you build resiliency in the recovery process. And, you know, a major point in fact is the highway, especially from the Honolulu area into Hyena. You know, there are some major landslides along the area which cause, you know, the road to be restricted. And you can only enter and exit that area to a convoy system while the contractors work on the road. And every time there is heavy rainfall, you know, you see more erosion onto the road. And you also see parts of the road, so the slipping. So one of the repairs that's going on right now is shoring up the road itself. And, you know, we have to remember Kauai is one of the older major islands and we are eroding. And so there's a lot of community talk about how do we approach this recovery and understanding that these kinds of weathering events is probably the norm now. And how do we respond to that and build the resiliency of the community in that recovery effort. You know, and part of that is having these homes built to new flood standards. And so building these homes higher, which have higher costs. And if the repair or the rebuild of these damaged homes are over $10,000, these homes are on cesspools. They have to convert to septic systems. You know, how do these septic systems function with more flood occurrence? And, you know, basically what does all that add to the cost of building and repairing your homes? I get two things out of that. Maybe you could comment on that. The first thing is you can't go home again. And what I mean by that is you cannot assume that you're going to fix your house to make it like it was. Because if you do that, you're taking a serious risk the next time. So what you have to do as a lesson we can learn by what happened in Kauai, and for that matter, the big island and the storms to come, is you have to fix your home in a way that it's stronger and more resilient going forward. You have to keep up with the increasing intensity of these storms and floods. That's one point. And the other point is that that costs money, just as the roads cost money to fix them. And so we have to sort of be ready to raise that money and to dedicate that money to dealing with, you know, making our homes more resilient and rebuilding the roads as and when necessary. This is the new normal, just as you said. Right. And, you know, the other thing that we have to understand, especially in these valleys which have been carved by rainfall, you know, from these two major flooding events, water patterns have changed. So the need for hydrological studies, so we understand the drainage system so we don't put anybody back in harm's way. And so that's from the government, you know, having more robust planning efforts as we move forward. And then on the individual end, you know, people understanding their responsibility to be able to rebuild in a way that makes them less vulnerable. And to be more vigilant, you know, in the April flood, I think we inventory something like 297 vehicles that were lost. And you mean swept away? A damage by flooding. Yeah. Whether they were, you know, in grudges that were susceptible to flooding or on the roads that were susceptible to flooding or even like you said, swept away. You know, tons of farm equipment, especially for the taro farmers. But, you know, there's a need to be vigilant and be ready to move things to higher ground and identifying where you can move equipment and vehicle to higher ground so they won't be affected by flood waters. Yeah. And part of this is part of recovering is to have insurance. And everybody says, I mean, we've had a number of people on the shows, so you want to prepare for the storms of the future? You better get flood insurance. On the other hand, it costs money for an insurance company to compensate you for flood damage. And that means your premiums are going to go up for flood damage. And maybe your insurance company may not be able to handle it. Sometimes these major events break an insurance company's ability to do business. And they go out of business and you don't get compensated. So I mean, I think that's all going to change as the storms increase in intensity and frequency. And so there's not one solution, but a combination of solutions that we've all got to attend to personally and as a community. Yeah. And I think, you know, for, especially for rural areas, it really takes community involvement in how you respond to these situations. And we saw it here on Kauai. It was not only the first responders out there, but you had a whole, a number of community volunteers aiding in the emergency response and augmenting the emergency response. And so there are a lot of questions on how do you see up this community action plan to afford disaster resiliency as we move forward. There's a lot of interest in that. And, you know, the interesting thing that happened during Tropical Storm Lane was how localized the rainfall was. And where we had community members in the Waianaea area calling the Department of Transportation, because of the convoy system in and out, calling the Department of Transportation and saying, hey, we have to open up the convoy right now because people want to get home or people want to leave. And their response was slow because it wasn't raining in Lihui. The gauges, because they hadn't, the rain gauges and the stream gauges weren't, I guess, weren't calibrated yet after the April storm. And so, you know, where the local, he had eyes on the ground experiencing a deluge, you know, it wasn't being recognized where decisions were being made. And so the response was delayed by like over an hour, you know, to get the decision makers to react to the localized situation. So, just again, how do you improve communication? How do you engage the community meaningfully in these events and open up and maintain communication? Yeah. Well, you know, one thing that strikes me is that although in recent storms, the neighbor islands seem to get more bad weather, more floods than Oahu, that whole process would be much more destructive. The storms and the floods and the winds could be, if they hit Oahu directly, could be much more destructive here. Then the other thing to get out of what you're saying, and this goes back to the whole thing about the insula drift and the drift of region from region and throughout the state. The fact is that I watched you, Mina, and you were working roll up your sleeves as a human person trying to help and trying to get people to help with you to deal with the cleanup after the Kauai flood. And I imagine there are a lot of people like that on a big island, too. It's an example of old-time Hawaii, maybe the Hawaii we left behind in some ways. But now when you have a common problem and people are in trouble, you do roll up your sleeves and everybody chips in to help. And I think Oahu can learn a lot from what has happened on the neighbor islands, what has happened with you in the community or communities in Kauai. So I think we have to revisit the whole notion of working together. It's not only taking instructions from the governmental first responders, it's being first responders or at least second responders ourselves and working together to help our neighbors. I think we may have lost some of that, but now is the time to think about it again. Don't you agree? Yeah, I'll tell you one of the most valuable that the community took was several days after the storm, there were a group of individuals that developed a needs assessment form and they had volunteers go out and get information on people. And there was another volunteer group that called through the information daily to red flag emergency situations, medical care, infants, children, those kinds of needs and respond to them quickly. And so the nonprofit that I was involved with in order to ensure that the information was being updated consistently, input into a database and consistently, we took over that and developed a database about almost over 500 households were surveyed. And so we had information that we could act on and then share with the government agencies. Oh, that's great. That's great. That's fabulous. Well, as an example of the Hawaii that I truly love, and I think what happened in Kauai is worth a lot of discussion and there's some great lessons there. And I'm sure we'll find out things that happened in the Big Island the same way. Mina, it's been wonderful to talk to you about this. And I hope we can get together again in two weeks and explore other things around environment and energy just as today. Right. Thanks, Jay. I really appreciate you having me. Aloha. Talk soon. Okay. Thanks, Jay. Bye-bye. Thank you, Mina. Bye.