Lots of Emergency Alerts Today

I was awakened just before 5:30 this morning by the 1st of several emergency alerts from Hawai'i County Civil Defense. Even though Hurricane Dora was over 600 miles south of us, & tropical storm force winds only extended about 105 miles out, the winds we were getting were still enough to do some damage. The 1st fire alert requested people take the Kohala Mountain Road as an alternate route. But then the next alert said there were trees down across the Kohala Mountain Road! Āue! Fortunately they got those trees cleared out of the road quickly. I think they went down because of the high winds & strong gusts which also kept firefighting helicopters grounded.

Just before lunch, the voluntary fire evacuation zone was expanded. Now 4 gated communities with multi-million dollar homes were being asked to evacuate. I guess that's what happens when you decide you want to live where it is dry & you want an expansive view of the ocean; you move to old pastureland that has been converted to large residential farmettes with nice roads, gates, & guards at the entrance so the riffraff can't come & bother you. When it was pastureland this type of fire would not have been as big of a problem. Now firefighters will have to put their health & safety on the line to save these expensive houses. 

In mid-afternoon it became a mandatory evacuation. The Akoni Pule Hwy was now closed from mile post 6 to 16; which means Lapakahi is within the area that is off limits. I decided to see if it was true; since Dane has taken the day off for a medical procedure no one would be at Lapakahi to make sure all the tourists got out & the gate was closed so none could get back in. The road was actually closed off at MP 17 by a Department of Transportation truck parked sideways in the road. I talked to the driver; he said Lapakahi had been checked & the gate was closed. I relayed the information to Dane, who had been unaware of what was happening since he was just coming out of the operating room.

The 1800 acres burned was later revised down to 600.

The truck across the road is way in the background.

As I drove back to Kapaʻau, another emergency alert came through. Now Queen Kaʻahumanu Hwy was closed between Hapuna & the Kawaihae junction! Āue! That means Dane will not be able to get to his office in the morning & will also not be able to get to Lapakahi! I texted that information to him also; he is calling his supervisor to find out what to do.

By 6 pm, the mandatory evacuation order had been lifted in the mauka areas, but the makai areas of Kohala Ranch were still under mandatory evacuation.The road closures on Akoni Pule & Queen Kaʻahumanu are still in effect tonight, so we may not be going to Lapakahi tomorrow. As of 8 pm this evening, the fire has 60% contained & had burned about 600 acres. Hawaiʻi Island has been much more fortunate than Maui where several historic structures were burned in Lahaina town, among other major damage on the island. Here is a video & some photos of the destruction.

Here's the Hawai'i County Hazard Impact Map. We are located in the green portion at the north end where the green & white emergency shelter symbol is shown; our hazards today are high wind & high surf. The wind has impacted me by knocking over one of my tall plants that is still in the pot & one of the shorter ones that has a lot of surface area; they're now waiting out the high winds in the garage. The yellow area to the west has only high wind as its hazard. The pink area has high winds & dry fire hazard conditions; the fires are located at the brown circle with the white triangle. The red dashed line are closed roads. You can see the light gray lines near the bottom end of the red dotted line indicating roads around that area; those are where the multi-million dollar homes are located. Just to the south of them is the Kawaihae Hawaiian Home Land subdivision, a much lower income residential area for native Hawaiians; they will probably be safe since all kinds of efforts will be made to save the multi-million dollar homes standing between them & the fire. 

The wind blew the koai'e sapling down even in the garage!

The Tesla app was also letting me know that high winds were a possibility. I like that it automatically starts storing energy in case there is a power outage as happened on Maui when poles were burnt down.

High wind warning from last night got extended.

The warning was extended several times.

In the video below, Chief Meterologist Jennifer Robbins for Hawaii News Now explains how Hurricane Dora is impacting the winds here.

Before the emergency alert woke me up, I had gotten a text just after 4 am. It was saying someone tried to change the destination address of my package near Springfield, IL. Since I had just gotten notification the day before that something I ordered was being shipped from Elk Grove Village, IL, it initially sounded legitimate. I clicked on the link, it asked for my zip code. Then the next window asked me to pay to have the shipment rescheduled within the next 2 days or my shipment would be returned to the warehouse. Even in my sleepy state that did not sound right. I double checked the earlier email about the shipment & realized my package is coming via FedEx not UPS. So I went back to sleep.

The wrong tense & punctuation would have tipped me off if I was fully awake.

After this screen it asked for money.

It looked so peaceful when I woke up this morning. It was a little windy but nothing like it would be in the middle of a high wind warning area.

This morning I spoke with Dr. Pham, my primary care physician; she was following up on my emergency room visit last week for my back pain. I haven't seen her in a while so I made an appointment to see her in person in October when I will be on Oʻahu for my dental appointment. I was also overdue for a mammogram & a dermatology check; I will also be having those done while I am on Oʻahu. I tried to get both of those done on Hawaiʻi Island prior to October, but appointments for those were not available on-island until January & February 2024! Āue! Good thing I am fortunate enough to be able to travel inter-island frequently.

Just after lunch, I got a call from Jeremy from Kraftsman Auto Body. They will be repairing the ding by the tailgate window on the Crosstrek that I got in Waikiki a couple years ago. The part is in & Don will be able to do the repair next week! Hulō! They also have an arrangement with a nearby car rental place which will provide transportation to & from their shop plus a discounted rental price! Which means I won't have to have Trudy or someone else go to Kona with me to help me move the car around while I get a rental to use for the 3 days that Don will be working on the Crosstrek. 

In the evening I attended the North Kohala Community Development Plan Advisory Committee's Utilities subcommittee's meeting on cesspool conversions; a 2017 law requires all cesspools to be converted to septic systems or hook up to sewer by 2050. A State task force is looking at prioritizing which systems are worked on 1st depending on their impact to the environment. A new grant initiative passed last year to provide up to $20,000 for a property to aid in the conversion spent $5 million in 2 weeks on the highest priority sites & is now out of money. I checked the interactive map & found we are in the Priority 3 area so need to comply by 2050. But I would rather not wait that long if I will be funding it myself. One of the positive suggestions was creating something like a sewer district for areas where houses are clustered together; the Kynnersley Road area where our house is was one of the places suggested. If it does happen; it would mean the State would foot the initial bill & repayment would be in the form of an additional assessment on property taxes over the next 30 or so years.

I saw Beth at the cesspool conversion meeting. I had been concerned about her since early this morning when the fire broke out; she lives at Kohala Ranch. Or so I thought. When I talked to her tonight I found out she lived there when we 1st met online in 2020 through the ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi class at University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa. She has since moved to a place just north of Hāwī town so was not in any danger. What a relief!

Although the High Wind Warning is scheduled to end at 4:45 tomorrow morning, the winds seemed to slow down significantly by the early evening but then flared up again. Major Hurricane Dora is now about 750 miles south-southwest of us & moving westerly at about 23 mph. But this morning Dora was about 600 miles south of Hawai'i Island with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph; hurricane force winds extended out about 30 miles with tropical storm force winds extending out about 105 miles.

And things are not slowing down in the Eastern Pacific. There looks to be another storm brewing that may make its way over to the Central Pacific. In the morning (Hawai'i time) it was forecast to have a 50% chance of becoming more organized over the next 7 days. By mid-day that had increased to 60% over 7 days with a 0% chance of forming within 48 hours. At the end of the day it now has a 10% chance of forming within 48 hours; stay tuned! 

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Paul, Bill, & Dominique! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo makahiki ʻumi kumamālima e The Most Excellent Cook & The Bronco Dude! A me ka Hauʻoli lā Hoʻomanaʻo makahiki ʻehiku e Leigh & Lenny!