Ready for the worst

Seven-year-old Brooke Sarahina and her brother, Braden, 6, knelt beside each other on the floor at Ewa Makai Middle School Saturday and took turns learning how to use an automated external defibrillator on a medical dummy.

Rather than being intimidated, Brooke Sarahina said using the defibrillator is easy. "You have to just put the sticker on it and then that’s it," she said.

It’s important because "it’s for safety," she added.

Her mother, Melissa Sarahina, watched proudly as the children also learned cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

"This is great — learning how to use the AED and learning how to do compressions," she said. "It’s such a good experience."

Sarahina said she brought her kids to the second annual "Get Ready Ewa Beach" Emergency Preparedness Fair on Saturday to teach them the value of being ready for natural disasters.

"We live on an island, and we’re very vulnerable," she said at the Hawaii Heart Foundation booth, where the AED and CPR lessons took place.

The Ewa Emergency Preparedness Committee’s second preparedness fair coincided with National Preparedness Month. The event featured activities for children, a Honolulu Police Department "Keiki ID" booth for fingerprinting children, and several disaster preparedness booths.

"We wanted to do it earlier (than last year) to let people know this is it — this is the time to prepare," said Donald Harlor, event coordinator.

Harlor said that attendance was nearly 500 in just the first two hours.

Roughly 50 organizations and businesses set up booths, including the city Department of Emergency Management, Federal Emergency Management Agency, American Red Cross, Central Pacific Hurricane Center, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the Hawaii Medical Reserve Corps. There were also insurance and tempered-glass companies and a canned- and dried-food vendor.

With the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Iniki approaching Tuesday, many organizations hoped to increase awareness of Hawaii’s vulnerability to cyclones and seismic sea waves.

"Right now we just haven’t been in that time where we’re getting a lot of hurricanes," said Tom Evans, deputy director of the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. "I couldn’t say that we’re any more at risk or less at risk — the risk is always there. … That’s the reason why we have these preparedness fairs: to remind people that these types of storms can occur, and the best thing that they can do for themselves and their loved ones is to be prepared and know what they’re going to do."

Tim Mattos, a father of four who attended the event with his family for a second year, shared a similar sentiment. "Life is precious, and emergencies come without notice," he said. "The more knowledge we can gain, the better prepared we’re going to be."

Sarahina said her family already has a "grab-and-go" emergency kit ready that includes nonperishable food, medicine and other necessities, but she brought her kids to the fair so they could learn preparedness firsthand.

The Ewa Emergency Preparedness Committee came together in June 2011, after the Japanese tsunami.

Harlor said that last year’s fair in Ewa Beach was the largest on the island. "There’s really no other community that puts up an event quite like this," he said.