WAIMEA — Whether it’s a hurricane, earthquake, flood, fire or drought, some disasters occur on Hawaii Island with advance notice and others when they’re least expected. ADVERTISING WAIMEA — Whether it’s a hurricane, earthquake, flood, fire or drought, some disasters
WAIMEA — Whether it’s a hurricane, earthquake, flood, fire or drought, some disasters occur on Hawaii Island with advance notice and others when they’re least expected.
To help educate community members on the best ways to prepare, residents Scott and Angela Nagata hosted the first annual Waimea PrepareAthon on Aug. 19 at Kuhio Hale in Waimea. Seventeen private and nonprofit organizations, government agencies and vendors shared tips on how to be ready at a moment’s notice.
About 100 people attended, mostly from North Hawaii.
“We came up with the idea to create the event at the beginning of this summer,” Scott said. “Hurricane season was coming and other than public service announcements on the radio, I hadn’t seen any event that focused on emergency prep. I started looking around for resources and found out about CERT, but it was too late to join their current training calendar so I found that FEMA had a national marketing campaign called PrepareAthon in September and wanted to get a jump on that.”
Although his day job is unrelated to disaster, Scott grew up seeing emergency preparedness events on Oahu every year or so.
“Living here for five years, I hadn’t seen anything and thought, ‘if no one else is doing it, why can’t we?’” he said.
His goal was to share an abundance of emergency preparedness and survival tips at educational booths. Participants included Civil Defense, American Red Cross, Hawaii Electric Light Co., SunRun Solar, The Home Depot, Costco, Civil Air Patrol, North Hawaii Community Hospital and CERT. Two additional booths came from Oahu — Six Eagles and Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
Resident Jeffrey Coakley emceed the event and shared with the crowd roles that various agencies play in emergencies.
“It was a very organized and impressive network coming together to show what could happen in an emergency and how to prepare for it,” said Lani Eugenio. “The big earthquake a few years back was a wake-up call for residents in North and West Hawaii. Families have also suffered losses in floods and damage from high winds within the past decade. Sometimes we only think of hurricanes and tsunamis, but other things in life like a drought or loss of power can leave a family in dire straits.”
The entire Waimea Fire Department attended, including paramedics, to demonstrate how they prepare. Vendors demonstrated ideal food storage, simple water distilling systems, homemade stoves using twigs for fuel, alternative medicine kits, prepared backpacks, a suitcase of supplies needed in a “Get up-&-Go” emergency and MREs — meals ready to eat.
Mauna Kea Beach Hotel displayed the emergency system they use for hotel guests.
“Scott called them to see if they would want to be a part of the fair and they said one of their goals is to be more community oriented,” Angela said. “We learned what Mauna Kea Resort does during a disaster in their own ‘small town’ at the resort. They need to make sure their guests and residents are safe, so they have their own security procedures for an emergency — a set chain of command.”
Some people stopped by the event out of curiosity after seeing the sign on Mamalahoa Highway that day.
“There were all kinds of people there — not who you would usually expect, all different ages and backgrounds,” Eugenio said.
The Nagatas are already talking about possibly planning a second event.
“The organizations I’ve spoken to since our first PrepareAthon want to do it again and were glad to network with each other,” Scott said. “The Civil Air Patrol has problems with their solar panels that power their communication system during an emergency and Sun Run agreed to help them. They also connected with representatives from the Pohakuloa Training Area, and Mauna Kea Resort staff talked about wanting to become certified for their own CERT group.”
Even Angela learned new things from the organizations.
“One vendor had freeze-dried and canning displays and explained how to do that,” she said. “A rocket stove was something I had never seen before to cook efficiently. CERT was new to me too.”
For people who weren’t able to attend the event, much of the information shared can be found on a new Facebook page at www.facebook.com/waimeaemergencyprep created shortly before the event. Updates will continue to be posted there.
“I’d love to see this expand. If it gets other communities on the island motivated, then all the better. It would be great to see an island-wide fair one day,” Scott concluded.
