Are You Ready?

by Senator Will Espero

Are you ready for a disaster?

As we all know, land is at a premium in Hawaii. One of the areas affected by this is the shelter space during emergencies. The largest shelter on Oahu is the Hawaii Convention Center, with about 18,000 person capacity, followed by the Neal Blaisdell Center. DOE schools provide 93% of shelter space. Altogether, given the dense population on Oahu, there is only room to accommodate 30-35% of our island’s population and visitors. What does that mean? Most of us will need to “shelter in place,” that is, to stay put at our own homes or that of our friends or family.

Among the out-of-the-box solutions for increasing shelter capacity for disasters is use of other spaces, such as community centers, theatres, churches, and the like. The one-piece, concrete construction makes these buildings ideal for providing a safe place for people during and following a natural or other large-scale emergency. The single wall construction, which we use to keep housing prices affordable, does not have the needed safety structure to withstand winds, after all, having a roof fly off in case of disaster takes away protection from flying debris that could cause injury.