State bill would mandate emergency shelter space

All new state buildings would have to be designed and built with shelter space capable of withstanding catastrophic disasters under a proposal making its way through the Legislature.

House Bill 2452 would mandate state buildings constructed after July 1 include a “shelter room or area” to protect people from a major Category 3-strength hurricane, which has sustained winds of 111 to 129 mph.

The bill originally included language calling for shelters to protect against hurricanes and nuclear fallout, but the nuclear part was removed during a committee hearing Thursday.

State Rep. Gene Ward objected to the change and voted against advancing the measure.

“I think the reality is to keep the word in — nuclear. That’s the new reality,” Ward (R, Kalama Valley-Queen’s Gate-Hawaii Kai) said. “To say that this is just a hurricane bill, I think, is missing the point.”

The bill is one of several legislative proposals to surface in the weeks after a Hawaii Emergency Management Agency employee mistakenly sent out a ballistic missile threat alert to cellphones statewide Jan. 13. It took the agency 38 minutes to send out a cellphone notification that the alert was false.

Although the agency has been advising the public to shelter in place in the unlikely event of a nuclear attack, the cellphone alert had some people frantically searching for shelter space. Emergency officials have said there would be only about 15 minutes between a notification that the state is under a ballistic missile threat and the attack.

State Rep. Isaac Choy (D, Manoa-Punahou-Moiliili) said the requirement that future state buildings have shelter space could give people a false sense of hope because HI-EMA has been saying it would be impossible to build enough shelters for everyone in the state.

“If we were to start building these shelters, would the community have an expectation that the state will provide them some kind of shelter for hurricanes?” Choy asked. “And what if it’s on weekends or nighttime, when the state buildings are closed? Do we run and open them up?”

Choy also raised concerns about shelters being able to withstand other types of attacks, like biological and electromagnetic bombs.

Maj. Gen. Arthur “Joe” Logan, director of HI-EMA, acknowledged North Korea has multiple weapons in its arsenal. Logan said a shelter to protect against biological warfare would have to have air filtration systems.

HB 2452 cleared the House Public Safety and Veterans, Military and International Affairs and Culture and the Arts Committees on Thursday.

Those same committees also advanced HB 2582, which calls for a task force made up of more than 30 stakeholders to develop recommendations for the state’s disaster preparedness plan. The group would include lawmakers, county and tourism officials, members from the University of Hawaii and Board of Education, and representatives from the business, utilities, shipping and broadcasting sectors.

An earlier version of the bill would have required UH’s National Disaster Preparedness Training Center to then prepare the state’s disaster preparedness plan, instead of HI-EMA, but that part of the bill has been deleted.

Interim HI-EMA Administrator Moses Kaoiwi testified against the original measure, saying it would duplicate work already being done by the agency.

State Rep. Matthew LoPresti said the bill would help begin to restore public trust in HI-EMA.

“There’s a lack of confidence, public confidence, in an organization that there must be confidence in because the mission is to help protect, inform and save lives,”LoPresti (D, Ewa Villages-Ocean Pointe-Ewa Beach) said. “It’s a way that I see for the community — invested, informed and engaged aspects of those communities — to come to the table as stakeholders and, if not develop a plan, at least make recommendations to this legislative body to act upon.”