With a mixture of concern, horror and wonder, the entire country is watching southeast Texas struggle with disastrous floods and persistent rain in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

Highways are rivers and neighborhoods are lakes. Rainfall is measured in feet, not inches. And it’s happening on a vast scale, including the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan area, Houston.

The remnants of Harvey, now a slow-moving tropical storm headed for Louisiana, have made thousands of people homeless, crowded into shelters, clinging to whatever they could carry with them.

For now, that’s the new normal. Public officials say cleanup and recovery will take years. The lives of thousands of individuals and families have changed forever, thanks to one big storm.

All this is worth pondering as Hawaii approaches the 25th anniversary of our own big storm, the disastrous Hurricane Iniki, which struck Kauai on Sept. 11, 1992. That storm killed six people and caused an estimated $2 billion in damage. But that was only the beginning.

The effects of Iniki lingered for years; ruins of buildings along Kuhio Highway still stand in silent testament to the storm’s destructive power.

The long-term economic impact of Iniki, documented in a 2009 paper by University of Hawaii researchers Makena Coffman and Ilan Noy, showed that population growth slowed and visitor arrivals languished, taking eight years to reach previous levels.

One can’t really equate Kauai with Houston, or Iniki with Harvey. Even so, it’s not a stretch to conclude that a small island, isolated and dependent on tourism, could suffer in ways proportionally as dramatic as what we’re seeing on television now.

And if that small island is Oahu, densely populated between the ocean and steep mountains, the damage wreaked by a Category 4 hurricane would be far greater than $2 billion and six people lost.

Floodwaters would flow from the watersheds on one side and ocean storm surges on the other. Depending on where the hurricane hit, experts calculate that large stretches of low-lying coastal areas would be under water.

On Oahu, that could mean Waikiki and the newly redeveloped Kakaako, among other population centers.

Older single-wall homes that lack reinforcement would crumple under hurricane-force winds. More than 1,400 homes were destroyed on Kauai, with more than 5,000 severely damaged. Many more would be lost in Honolulu.

Still, it’s easy to be lulled into a state of complacency. Iniki was 25 years ago, and although hurricanes passed close in 2016, the damage was relatively minimal. The Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund, established after Iniki to help people get hurricane insurance, has shrunk and gone dormant, as years passed and private insurers re-entered the market.

We’re in the middle of the Central Pacific hurricane season now — from June 1 to Nov. 3 — and so far it’s been a yawner, thank goodness. But Harvey and the suffering residents of southeastern Texas warn us of what we could expect.

Our government agencies need to be ready with clear alarm protocols and evacuation procedures. Will there be enough emergency supplies to handle thousands of displaced people? More important, are we prepared to lose everything — our homes, belongings, pets — and still be able to pull ourselves to recovery?

Climate change and global warming have made us more aware of the dangers of unstable weather. Perhaps we’re living in a time when hurricane prep — having a 14-day supply of food, knowing the evacuation routes — can no longer be an afterthought, but part of our seasonal routine.