There are only 8,000 shelter spaces in the Kula area, located at Kalama Intermediate School and King Kekaulike High School. Those spaces are are based on each person only taking up 10 square feet, Gen Iinuma Maui County Civil Defense Administrator told the June 14 meeting of the Kula Community Association.
“The shelter situation is grim,” said Iinuma. He said if a Category 1 storm hit, with winds of 74 mph, Maui is short 43,000 shelter spaces. If Maui were hit by a Category 3 storm with winds of 94 mph, it would be short 94,000 spaces, he said.
“People need to be self sustaining,” he said. People should have a seven to 10 day supply of food and water, he said and they shouldn’t count on the government to help them immediately. “People will have to be patient,” said Iinuma. “Help will come, but it will take some time.”
He was asked how people would communicate if a disaster knocked out all electricity.
“Losing electricity by itself would not be a show stopper,” said Iinuma. “It would take a huge disaster to bring down communications.” Satellite phones, ham radios and line-of-site walkie talkies could be used, he said.
Iinuma said that weather problems weren’t the only disaster that civil defense was concerned with. Pandemic flu was a concern among civil defense people. He said he learned at a conference that Hawaii was one of 25 hot spots in the world for avian flu. If there were an outbreak, he said the decision had been made by the Lingle administration not to quarantine the state, as the economic toll would be too great.
Also on the agenda was Dr. Chad Meyer, Medical Director of Kula Hospital. He gave an update on the emergency room and spoke on planning for the future.
He said the emergency room was seeing five or six patients a day and that people were coming longer distances because they could get in faster than they could at Maui Memorial Medical Center.
Meyer said that things like lacerations could be treated at Kula but that people with heart problems should call 911. He said there was research that showed that heart attack patients did better if they let medical personnel come to them instead of trying to go to the hospital and that in any event, Maui Memorial was better equipped for that sort of emergency.
Eventually, the plan is to have a group of doctors staff Kula Hospital.
He said Kula Hospital, which originally was a tuberculosis sanitarium and currently has about 100 beds for long-term patients, could also use a senior center long term care. He said there would be a huge demand for this sort of service as the society ages and that almost all other parts of the island had senior centers.
He said Hawaii Health Systems Corp., which runs Maui Memorial and virtually all the other hospitals in the state, would be interested in providing money for the physical facility, but he was uncertain if they would provide funding for anything else. He recommended people contact Wes Lo at Maui Memorial to give their input on such a center.
Kiope Raymond, a professor of Hawaiian Studies at Maui Community College, gave a presentation on the proposed solar telescope planned for the summit of Haleakala.
Raymond, who is opposed to the telescope, showed panoramic photos of the site. He said that for Native Hawaiian people the site was sacred. When people came to the top of the mountain, the 144-foot telescope facility would be all that could be seen from the summit.
Raymond said that he didn’t oppose the science that the telescope would bring, but did oppose the mass of buildings that would be built. He said of the top six sites discussed for the telescope, only Haleakala was considered sacred.
He said that the land where the telescope would be located was on ceded lands owned by the University of Hawaii. Because they were owned by the school, no local building permits would be required, although federal environmental statements would be needed.
The start date for construction had been pushed back to 2009, he said, with the project to be completed by 2014. Raymond said the projected cost was $150 to $175 million.
He said that there were opponents to locating the telescope on Haleakala, including the Friends of Haleakala Park and the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs. There was still a chance to stop the project, as Congress needed to appropriate the money.
The draft Environmental Impact Statement is in the process of being written this summer and will likely be done at the end of the year. Raymond said $18 million had been spent on the EIS since 2001, with $2 million appropriated for this fiscal year.
Following Raymond’s presentation, people were asked to split into groups of six, where they were asked to write down some plans for the future of Upcountry Maui.