For an island with an acknowledged shortage of emergency shelter space, Kauai’s efforts to establish more of it seemingly run into one brick wall after another. The latest chance to turn a new building into something suitable for emergency-shelter usage
For an island with an acknowledged shortage of emergency shelter space, Kauai’s
efforts to establish more of it seemingly run into one brick wall after
another.
The latest chance to turn a new building into something suitable
for emergency-shelter usage was Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School in Puhi,
which opened in August.
With design changes recommended by state Civil
Defense which would have added around 6 percent – about $2.1 million – to the
roughly $35 million construction cost, at least some of the buildings in the
new school could have qualified as emergency shelters.
Not enough of those
changes were implemented, and therefore none of the buildings qualify as
emergency shelter space, confirmed a Civil Defense official.
“I wouldn’t
recommend it (putting people in any of the school buildings during an
emergency) at this point,” said Norman Ishikawa, state Civil Defense hurricane
program shelter manager.
The band building – Building J – was the only
structure that came close to qualifying as a shelter. But because of the style
and type of roof vents installed in the building, it is only “borderline” safe
as an emergency shelter, Ishikawa said.
School officials “didn’t have that
extra money to go ahead and apply that hurricane-resistance criteria,” Ishikawa
said.
This is at a time when Kaua’i County’s civil defense officials are
recommending Po’ipu hotel managers send their guests to shelter space at Kaua’i
Community College in Puhi in times of emergencies. That’s because the South
Shore’s lone certified shelter, Koloa Elementary School, can only handle 855
bodies, said Mark Marshall, Kaua’i Civil Defense Agency administrator.
The
college, as a shelter, can accommodate 1,400 people, Marshall said. An
estimated 4,000 visitors a day stay in South Shore accommodations.
Where
schools new and old are concerned, a conflict exists between making the
classrooms comfortable for student use and making them able to withstand a
hurricane’s force.
Marshall acknowledged that retrofitting existing school
buildings, or building hurricane-resistant new ones, totally changes their
aesthetics.
He agreed with Ishikawa’s assessment that none of the buildings
at the new Puhi middle school along Kaumuali’i Highway qualify as certified
emergency-shelter facilities.
“We’ve not been able to identify any shelter
spaces there yet,” Marshall said. “We’re still doing our surveys to see if
there’s even limited space available, but it doesn’t look like there’s much of
anything there.”
State Civil Defense almost annually has a bill introduced
in the Legislature to require all public construction to have sheltering
capabilities for at least the number of normal users of the building, such as a
school or office building. The bill fails to pass every year, Marshall
said.
While arshall and Ishikawa say the entire state and Kaua’i have a
critical need for more emergency shelters, Ishikawa feels Kaua’i, because of
county government’s efforts, is in better shape than the rest of
Hawai’i.
“The county has actually initiated a lot of action in trying to
overcome the shelter deficit,” Ishikawa said.
Retrofitting of the Kaua’i
War Memorial Convention Hall’s 1,000-seat auditorium as a hurricane-resistant
emergency shelter is nearly complete, Marshall said.
Similar efforts are
underway or being considered for county properties, including certain
neighborhood centers, fire stations and police headquarters.
Civil Defense
officials are encouraging hotels to become certified private shelters to at
least take care of their own staff and guests, Marshall said.
The Hyatt
Regency Kaua’i Resort & Spa in Po’ipu is close to qualifying as a private
shelter, he noted.
“It’s very helpful if they can at least shelter their
own guests,” Marshall said of the South Shore hotels.
Ten square feet per
person is recommended for short-term sheltering, he said.
The county is
proposing giving residents breaks in their real property tax rates if they
build or reinforce existing rooms in homes to be qualified as “safe rooms”
capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds.
The Federal Emergency
Management Agency is taking the safe-room idea initiative into bigger
buildings, such as schools and libraries, “again trying to get people enticed
into meeting their own sheltering needs,” Marshall said.
Staff Writer
Paul C. Curtis can be reached at [
HREF=”mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net”>pcurtis@pulitzer.net] or 245-3681 (ext.
224).
