The elapse of 30 years since Hurricane Iniki struck Kauai with devastating force puts some distance between Hawaii residents and that destructive event. Distance from a natural disaster, whether in time or geographic space, is generally a good thing.

It’s not so good, however, if the impact of the storm, and the lessons that should have been learned, are forgotten.

Some of that seems to be the case in the post-Iniki years. The Garden Island has largely repaired or replaced its buildings and infrastructure, but not always with an eye to a future that climate change has made even more threatening and unpredictable.

Now is as good a time as any to reflect on where Kauai — the entire state, for that matter — stands on hurricane preparedness. Hurricane season will continue through November and, in addition to Sunday’s 30th anniversary of Iniki still fresh in memory, September is being marked as National Preparedness Month.

But is Hawaii prepared for the next big storm? Clearly not, particularly not in the area of providing emergency evacuation shelters. There are very few public buildings that provide even minimum requirements for hurricane sheltering. This is despite the fact that in 2006, mandated by a new state law passed the previous year, revised guidelines for properly hardened and equipped hurricane shelters were adopted.

And it’s not as if the state has to dig back 30 years for the most recent hurricane scares. Hurricane Lane peaked at Category 5 after it appeared on the viewscreen in August 2018, weakening significantly on its closer approach; still there were torrential rains and flash flooding. Hurricane Douglas in 2020 was another big near-miss, making the closest approach to Oahu in recorded history.

Douglas also came through in the midst of the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, pre-vaccinations, which further complicated the notion of sheltering in close quarters with strangers. Advisories were to shelter in place unless the home was structurally vulnerable or within the most threatened storm zones.

And even if the shelter-in-place model gained some stature during the health crisis, there’s been little done to assist individual households in efforts to protect themselves. In 2021, a bill to establish the Safe Home Program, providing matching and nonmatching grants for installation of wind-resistive devices to single-family homes, stalled in conference committee, and was not resurrected for 2022.

In some circles, a kind of inertia has set in regarding changing construction strategies. For example, the future of Kauai’s famous Coco Palms Resort, which Iniki left in shambles, is a simmering controversy. An August hearing before the county Planning Commission indicated that plans to redevelop the hotel at that location have not been abandoned.

That rightly has puzzled Kauai Mayor Derek Kawakami, who has said climate change should prompt returning the site to its natural state.

“What do they think will be the outcome the next time there’s another extreme weather event?” the mayor said.

With increasing storm frequency and changing patterns documented in a growing body of research, that’s a question that should guide much more of the state’s development.

There is some serious thought being applied to the issue. Hawaiian Electric Co. has announced a planned investment in hardening its grid against storms. And during this preparedness month, individuals and families should visit dod.hawaii.gov/hiema and go through the “Get Ready” menu of resources at the top.

Preparedness is always an individual’s concern — but government should do more to fulfill its role as well.