Chuck Yamada’s one-story home is nestled in a crowded neighborhood, just a few minutes’ drive into the valley above Waianae Mall.

Inside the compact home on Friday afternoon, his four children, between the ages of 6 and 15, were doing what might be expected during summer break: watching a show on a tablet, playing with pet kittens and throwing things at each other.

Yamada’s three youngest children share a room, while his mother-in-law also lives there with Yamada and his wife, Anna.

While the family could use more living space, there’s a room being used for what Yamada sees as a more important function: to house emergency food, water and other supplies.

Three rows of cylindrical containers of dried food, including lasagna, freeze-dried raspberries, celery, spinach and powdered honey and butter, are stacked almost from floor to ceiling along one of the walls. Next to the containers are cases of bottled water; in front of them on the floor are at least half a dozen sealed buckets of shelf-stable food, which can last for up to 25 years; and on top of those are large ice coolers containing bags of flour and rice. Behind the stack of bottled water is a closet full of extra MREs (meals, ready to eat) from the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, located a few minutes down the road.

While demonstrating how one of several shoe box-size manual water desalination units works, Yamada, aware of how the columns of food, water and tools might be perceived, said, “I’m not worried about (a doomsday). If it’s doomsday we’re all screwed. I’m not one of those ‘prepper’ guys.”

Instead, Yamada, 49, is preparing his family — 12 people total, including his sister’s family, who lives down the block with their mother — for a natural disaster like a hurricane, which is a constant threat to Hawaii residents.

His family, especially his four kids, drive his urge to prepare.

“It’s all for the kids. That’s the only thing I think about, to make sure they’re provided for,” Yamada said. “Because that’s what our job is, basically, to take care of the kids.”

The family’s emergency supplies aren’t contained to just one room. Cases of bottled water are stacked along the small hallway leading into the kitchen with its nine 10-gallon buckets of water.

In his garage, Yamada has a three-tiered shelf full of less shelf-stable food, like cases of Vienna sausages, Spam, corned beef and vegetable oil that the family goes through and replaces so that none of the supply expires.

He also has “bug-out bags” for emergencies and propane tanks and gas-powered grills that can be used if the electricity goes out, although he’s scheduled to have solar panels installed at his home to ensure there’s power if the grid they’re on goes out.

The stores of food and water alone can sustain the family for months.

Yamada joked that the upkeep of the substantial emergency supplies can sometimes be annoying to his family, but he said he’s also compensating for them.

“My mom, she tries to get rid of everything. She’s got two cans of Vienna sausages … in her cupboard. That’s her emergency (food),” Yamada said.

Waianae Coast susceptible

That’s unlike most Hawaii households, though. Some 88% don’t have enough emergency food, water or medicine to last 14 days — the official emergency supply recommendation by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency — according to a recent survey of about 1,000 households in the state as part of a study by researchers from the University of Hawaii at West Oahu.

And there are some parts of the state that are even more susceptible to natural disasters than others — Oahu’s Waianae Coast being a prime example.

“Historically, I think everyone knows West Oahu is one of the hardest-hit when it’s hurricane season,” said Alicia Higa, director of health promotion for WCCHC and interim executive director for its nonprofit subsidiary, ‘Elepaio Social Services. “When the natural disasters do hit, oftentimes we get blocked off from the main part of Oahu, which is where all the resources are located.”

Traffic is already a problem in the area because Farring­ton Highway and its four lanes provide the only means for vehicles to enter, leave or navigate through the Waianae Coast. But they are susceptible to flooding because they are so close to the ocean.

This year’s hurricane season is expected to be either “near normal” or “above normal,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center.

Tropical Storm Calvin could reach Hawaii island in the coming days, but was downgraded from hurricane status Sunday.

For Higa it’s not reassuring to know that Calvin was downgraded or that no catastrophic hurricane has hit Hawaii in 30 years.

“We’re due for one, quite honestly, especially with climate change. It’s getting worse and worse,” she said. “Whatever’s coming is going to be big.”

Hurricanes are fueled by warm water, and climate change has warmed the planet’s oceans to record- breaking temperatures. The oceans’ temperatures in April, May and June were the hottest ever recorded for those months.

Higa, who was born and raised in Waianae, remembers when Category 1 Hurricane Iwa in 1982 battered Kauai, Niihau and Oahu’s west coast, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and leaving hundreds of people without a home.

“When Hurricane Iwa came, the roads were closed off. Houses were floating down the street,” she said. “We had to evacuate. My mom, she held me and my sister’s hands, and we had to try and go through our back gate into our neighbor’s house … to get away from the ocean, and the water was waist-high.”

Yamada, who has also experienced the destructive ability of a hurricane, said many people on Oahu don’t give natural disasters much thought these days. That’s backed by the UH West Oahu study, which found that despite the low levels of household preparedness, some 56% of surveyed households said they believed they were adequately prepared, according to HI-EMA’s recommendations.

“Most people are complacent about it. They didn’t see the damage from the hurricanes, so they don’t know,” Yamada said. “(Hurricane) Iniki didn’t hit here, it hit Kauai. … They didn’t see the houses all gone.”

But he did.

After Category 4 Hurricane Iniki tore through Kauai in 1992, 19-year-old Yamada and his father, who both worked in construction, spent months rebuilding homes on the island.

Although he began his own emergency preparations only a few years before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Yamada’s experience of Iniki’s damage stuck with him.

“The houses were just gone. Where the house was supposed to be, you have a couple sticks sticking out of the ground,” he said. “And you see people living in tents. Kids in tents and stuff. You feel bad.”

Resources and food security

Household preparedness is described as a funda­mental part of emergency preparedness for the community as a whole, especially in Hawaii. Because of the state’s geographic isolation, local leaders expect a delayed response from the federal government. HI-EMA’s recommended 14-day supply of food and water for Hawaii households is higher than the federal recommendation because the state expects residents to be on their own for an extended period after a natural disaster.

Further, the Waianae Coast can be cut off from the rest of the island’s resources, compounding the issues of poverty and food insecurity that already exist within the community.

“We know that people are in desperate need of assistance for food,” Higa said. “It made us very concerned that when a natural disaster comes, and we have to resort to the state’s emergency plan of having everyone essentially fend for themselves with their own 14 days of food and water, that would be virtually impossible for our community that’s dealing with everyday emergencies for food.”

The WCCHC is working on a slew of projects to improve emergency preparedness and overall food security on the Waianae Coast, such as the construction of a resilience hub to shelter displaced residents, and a “food system campus” at the health center that will support agricultural learning, native crop production, a food bank and other food-related endeavors.

One of those efforts was led by the Hawaii Foodservice Alliance and its owner, Chad Buck, who privately funded a so-called pre- covery pod at the health center in 2022 for emergency situations. The pod, a shipping container with endemic birds known as elepaio painted on one side, contains about 200,000 servings of shelf-stable food.

The project was in part to demonstrate to the local and federal government, which have been criticized for not being prepared for natural disasters, how quickly and efficiently containers of emergency food could be set up.

“That was out of frustration. I felt like the state really needed to plan ahead rather than react, when it’s all too late,” Buck said. “The government’s pretty slow, so we decided to just do it on our own and post it out in Waianae, which is a community that’s exposed to being cut off.”

Higa said seven or eight pods, with proper spacing throughout the community, would be required to fully supply the 50,000 or so residents of the Waianae Coast during an emergency.

Yamada and his family likely won’t have to depend on the shipping containers of food if a hurricane or other natural disaster were to hit, and that food can then be distributed to those who need it more.

But ensuring that’s the case is not easy work.

The couple opened up the Lao Sticky Rice restaurant and grocery store at the Waianae Mall in 2020 after Anna’s family farm was shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Though the store closes at 4 p.m., Anna stays up to do the store’s bookkeeping well into the evening while Yamada cooks and does other chores.

He said they work long hours and give up normal pleasures like traveling or eating out — they didn’t even get to have a honeymoon, he said — to combat Hawaii’s high cost of living and ongoing inflation, but also to continue funding the effort to make sure their family, and especially their children, can make it through a natural disaster.

“That’s what pushes everything, to be able to take care of the kids,” Yamada said.

GETTING READY FOR A NATURAL DISASTER

Here are HI-EMA’s current emergency kit suggestions:

>> Fourteen days of food, water and medications: one gallon of water per person per day; nonperishable food such as canned soups and other nutritionally balanced, shelf-stable meals; a manual can opener

>> Important documents, sealed in a plastic bag: identification, such as a passport or driver’s license; debit and credit card information; banking information, such as account numbers; all insurance information; health care directives; copies of property titles and deeds; copies of prescriptions and dosages; a phone list of family and important numbers

>> Personal hygiene items: toothbrush and toothpaste; soap and shampoo; antibacterial wipes, masks and sanitizer; toilet paper with the roll removed; deodorant; necessary eye care; moisturizing lotion

>> Other items: battery or solar-powered radio; flashlight and extra batteries; plastic bags and ties for waste; whistle, matches, blankets and tarps; extra cash in small bills; first aid kit

>> HI-EMA has suggested visiting ready.hawaii.gov and clicking on the “Get Ready” tab for more emergency preparation information.