House Standing Committee on Public Safety

Good morning.

Can we mute the zoo? Okay, I think we're good. All right. Good morning. Morning. Morgan, can you assist? Little bit of technical difficulties. I think that might be good. Good morning. This is the Committee on Public Safety. Today is Wednesday, March 4, 2026, 10:00am we are in Conference Room 411.

This is the last day of our final mandatory five day recess. My name is Della Belatti. I'm the co Chair, the Chair of the Committee on Public Safety and I represent Urban Honolulu District 26, the communities of Makiki, Tantless, Papakolea and Punchbowl. I'd like to have my Committee Member introduce himself. Go ahead.

Hello everyone. Thanks for being here. Representative Graner Shimizu, District 32, which is roughly from Fort Chapter, Moanalua, Red Red Hill, Halawa Valley, Halawa Heights, Lower Aiea, Pearl Ridge, Aloha Stadium, Foster Village, West Aliamanu,

Plenty, plenty of communities. I wanted to share that. We have Committee Members who are both in their districts so they may be zooming in and watching online. And we do have an audience.

The reason that we committees like ours do informational briefings is to provide the community with important information to do a deeper dive sometimes on issues that we cannot do in a regular hearing.

This particular issue for the Committee on Public Safety is very important because as we have seen the increasing need for communities facing changing climate situations, harsher extreme weather conditions, and situations where we see communities needing to respond to emergency. Last year one of the conversations we had were around how do we build a more resilient community?

Whether it's building structures, whether it's hyema, investing in community readiness centers. And then what we learned through the hearings on the Committee on Public Safety was what are communities doing?

And so this briefing is really to understand how communities kind of outside of government, with government assistance, but oftentimes without government assistance, are building resilient communities that can respond to crises. We have seen community resiliency hubs pop up, particularly during the pandemic when we saw lots of food hubs serving our communities, when people were really afraid.

We saw AARP step up and do all kinds of things for all kinds of communities. And most recently in disaster zones where we saw in Puna or on the Big island when volcanoes went active, or on Maui when there were the wildfires. Communities stood up before government could come in.

And so what we really wanted to focus on is what are communities doing now? And we have a great lineup of speakers today, all from community on the island of Hawaii. We have communities that have been leading, I want to say for almost decades, but I'm not sure.

And so for me, this is as much a learning opportunity as I hope it's going to be a learning opportunity for my Committee and the community. Because what we want to take away from this informational briefing at the end of this are resources about how communities can become more resilient on their own.

But we also want to start talking about the policy framework in which we can plug in already existing community hubs, resilient centers, into a greater, broader, statewide network so that we can all be ready when a huge disaster hits.

So with that all said, that's a lot of that's an ambitious program, but I know we can do it because I know, based upon the communities that I've seen and worked with across the state, that we can do this. I apologize for a little bit of a long winded introduction, but I really wanted to sit still.

The stage for what we're doing here today for the next hour and a half. First up, we have Ms. Janice Ikeda, CEO of Vibrant Hawaii. Ms. Ikeda, take it away.

Mahalo nui, Representative Belatti. Aloha Kakou. So Vibrant Hawaii has been formally operating on Hawaii island since 2020. We've channeled over $10 million directly to our community partners. The infographic that I'm sharing kind of outlays our domains of which we operate so directly. We provide training and mentorship through an ambassador program with youth and young adults.

We operate a resilience training center. And then the middle domain is the ways that we support community as an intermediary, as a training partner, as a facilitator, so that communities are able to activate and do things that build resilience. And examples of that is the resilience hubs, Kaukau for Keiki, Ilia, Hiku and our social service navigators.

And then what we do at Vibrant Hawaii, we take all of those practices, we take all of those case studies and examples, and we share those models with others and other communities across the state and across the nation. So they are able to do this as well.

All of that 10 million that was referenced was channeled through that middle circle of the ways that we support communities so they can. And so examples of that work, grants, contracts, supplies, equipment. I'm often asked, what's resilience? And sometimes that's immediately followed by everybody has their own definition of a resilience hub. So what do you mean?

So, you know, at a basic level, resilience is a capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties. And a hub is a central Node or focus or focal point where activity is conducted.

And so therefore resilience hub is a central place in a community where people come together to build capacity to withstand challenges and recover quickly from disruptions. On Hawaii island, we coordinate a network of over 20 hubs. And here's how they lay out across the island. They are in every district of of the island.

And last year we were invited to support similarly a network of hubs in Koolau. And this is how they fall across the region. We provide our hubs with solar generators, with Starlink, two way radio communications, storage space, emergency shelter supplies, ongoing certification and training, monthly tabletop exercises, and an annual training conference.

One example of the kind of drill that we coordinate is conducted every summer and it's utilizing the Kaukau for Keiki program. We call this our annual drill. It happens during hurricane season. It includes, as you can see, over 30 partners from across the island.

Some of the things that we are drilling for six consecutive weeks every summer is site management, resource and inventory management, traffic and crowd management, communication and coordination, and demobilization and reporting. It's a USDA program. So you can just imagine the level of reporting and data collection that's required by this. Last summer, this community of network.

This network community serves six and channeled nearly 260, almost $260,000 to our local farms. Now the importance of this scheduled annual drill came to life shortly thereafter during the government shutdown. And so we were able to quickly mobilize that same network to stand up within two weeks period, a three week program that ultimately serves 74,000 people.

And this was done completely funded by community, driven and executed by community. There was no government dollars involved in this and it was upwards of $750. And so communities are not only demonstrating their capabilities through these drills and building those capabilities, but are then able to quickly mobilize.

Hubs, in addition to providing that immediate response, are also investing in hazard mitigation. So mitigation is the proactive action taken to reduce the long term risks and impacts of hazards, whether natural or human caused before they disrupt a community. And this is a quote that was just shared with me at last week's NACO conference in DC.

For every dollar invested in mitigation, $6 is saved in damage and response. And for every dollar not invested, $33 is lost in economic activity for that community. And this becomes very important.

Now where we are at as we're seeing FEMA suspending, cutting and canceling pre disaster hazard mitigation funding one of the activities that we focus on is chainsaw safety and felling certification. After a year of running these programs we now have seven teams, six on Hawaii island and one in Koalau.

56 folks have become certified and what that looks like in implementation and mobilization. If you recall just a few weeks ago there was tremendous rain and wind event that impacted communities. Following that we reached out to hubs in the network and heard back from one of them in Kahana.

And she said in Kahana, stream maintenance really made a huge difference. They have one of those chainsaw teams. Homes along Kahana Valley Road that usually flood were spared. And our community was proactive about digging trenches as we monitored the storms.

And so when we think about the value of trained community groups that are taking the time to do these hazard mitigation activities on an ongoing basis, their impact is really tremendous.

So if we take that example and we now apply it to food security and what we know is very important for residents to have that three week food supply on hand. And we look at what is being invested in through Hui Hana Ikumoku.

Last year we supported 20 communities to go through 30 plus hours of training in freeze drying preparation for locally sourced food. The goal that we've put out to our network of 20 communities across Hawaii island is this summer to be able to produce 10,000 units of freeze dried locally prepared food.

And we will be distributing it this summer in our Kaukau for Keiki program. Our intent is to then take what we learned from this initial pilot of 10,000 and then scale it further up to reach more families and be adding to their emergency food supply.

In addition to these things that I've already mentioned, we also include in our network 16 first aid CPR instructors. After one year these instructors have certified 400 folks in first aid CPR.

We have a network of 15 psychological first aid instructors and within a three month period of receiving their certification at the end of last year they had already certified 120 residents in PFA. We host annual youth Resilience academies that are led by young adults. It is inspired by the Teen CERT program and adapted for Hawaii island communities.

This year we are on Track to reach 250 intermediate and high school students. We are hosting a resilience conference this summer with six tracks in medical support, mental health support, shelter support, volunteer and donations management, long term recovery and food security.

And we've recently taken initial steps to formalize formalize a statewide resilience coalition that includes representatives from Hawaii Island, Maui, Molokai and Oahu. The work of the Hawaii island hubs have been demonstrated continuously each year, not only through training, but through real world implementation.

And I've provided a list of the examples of the ways that communities have trained and then responded to actual disasters and impacts felt on Hawaii island, most recently seen through the Kilauea eruption that happened about a month ago, where residents who are living on water catchments were experiencing tephra peles here being deposited on their roofs and in their water catchment systems.

The way that we learn from these experiences is then we reach out and build partnerships with subject matter experts.

And right now we are exploring a partnership with Kiko and the Plumbers and Fitters Union to see how we might be able to partner and train residents to then be able to support one another in ensuring that their water catchment systems and their filtration systems are going to keep them healthy and safe in these kinds of impacts.

Another example is Vibrant Hawaii Mini Grants. And so we piloted this last year in September, it was $100 grant, 150 people applied. They reached 7,000 people in this one day activation to make your community vibrant. And I'm sharing this as an example of low cost, high impact opportunities that we might consider scaling across the state.

Some examples were folks that said, I know I have several kupuna on my street, I made a little Ziploc bag of some emergency supplies and the most important thing I put in there was my name and my phone number and I let them know, when you need help, call me, I'm your neighbor and I'm here.

And it was things all the way from that scale of neighbors meeting one another to someone took the initiative to fill potholes in his road. And so we're very proud of what was accomplished through that one day. And we're looking at activating this across the year.

I want to close by sharing something that came up in our resilience coalition yesterday. And it was that everyday families are facing personal disasters and in under resourced and rural communities, people are figuring it out with the abundance they have in skill sets, relationships and reliance on each other. And this is resilience.

And finally this was shared by the leader of our Huihanai Kamoku Freeze Dry network. And she said, we are not first responders, we are immediate responders.

Thank you, Janice. Now I know why we started off with you. Thank you for framing everything and sharing all the good work that Vibrant Hawaii has been doing for so long and all the communities that you have networked. We're going to shift a little bit, we're going to move to what's happening on Oahu.

And really, as people are tuning in and listening, I think I really want this opportunity to ensure that we understand the scope and the breadth and the diversity of the communities that we're working with. And that was really appropriate to start with Hawaii Island. But we're going to now shift to Matthew,

Matthew Glei, who is a facilitator with Hawaii Kai Strong amongst many of his other things. I'm going to let him introduce himself and he's going to talk a little bit about some of the CERT training that's going on here on Oahu Island. But although some of the other things that he's also doing here in, in

Honolulu and throughout Oahu, Matthew, take it away.

Thank you very much. Appreciate your being here and hearing all the wonderful things that's happening with resilience hubs. Obviously, Hawaii island has been doing this for six years now, and so a lot of the hubs here on Oahu, some of them are just cranking up, but some very, very active for years here.

And you'll recognize their names and the people. So I wanted to talk a little bit about disaster preparedness and community resilience. So I'm not going to spend time talking about all the natural disasters that happen. We're all familiar with them. Hurricane and flooding, volcanoes, especially tsunamis and earthquakes, land sky landslides and wildfires.

We've all been shocked by what happened at Lahaina. And it's a long process coming back. But we've also worked very closely with the emergency management agencies. So, you know, statewide, it's hyima, they're here today to listen to what we have to say. And they lead a lot of the statewide planning and coordination.

They were very active on Maui and have been active whenever a disaster strikes. But the first, first responders are really from the county. So each county has its own organization, but they're all very much organized around taking care of people in that county, wherever that is. And so, you know, we work closely with them.

As a CERT instructor, I volunteer for the city and county of Honolulu and so do community training. And I think the community training is important because many of the people who come to our classes are from a specific or nearby community. So it's a great way to start community active there. And I'll show you how we're organized.

But many of us have also been through the H.H.A.R.P. program, which is Hawaii Hazards Awareness and Resilience Program. And just get rid of this so I can see it. Sorry, I need to go back and share again. Sorry.

You're still seeing it. Good. Well, I'm glad you can see it. So many of our communities have been through this, not only here on Oahu, but in other places. But it's a good program that started in 2013 and it's an educational program for the broad community because it really does take that broad community to respond.

Many of the organizations that I'll be talking about in terms of CERT teams have been through this process here. One of the most important things is our early warning system and each county has its own emergency alert system. Here in Oahu, it's HNL Alert, which is a very useful tool. Big improvement over the previous tools.

Being able to do that, speaking through our cell phones, all those kind of things are important. And we find the challenge there is sometimes messaging. Is it specific enough that if you're saying evacuate, you know who they're talking to? So every time we have one of these real world emergencies, we're learning better how to do this.

Even the wildfires in LA were having to improve their messaging as we went along. And we also have a number of visitors here on the island.

I forget how many each day somewhere in Hawaii, but it's tens of thousands and it's very difficult to communicate because they're not aware of the dangers that we are aware of because we live. Also we have many languages that are spoken.

So translating those and dealing with that kind of messaging is also still a challenge, although I think we're making progress and then partnerships with the resilience hubs. The reality is not every CERT team can be a resilience hub, but they can stand up around the resilience hubs.

So hubs are going to need even more help when there's a big broad emergency like a hurricane or tsunami or anything like that. The other thing is just making sure people are prepared. Building a 14 day kit is a minimum ask from HYIMA and every county organization I'm aware of. But that's just the beginning.

Getting people to build a go bag, people to build that 14 day kit of food and water, understanding where are they going to go during an evacuation. And then we have CERT Community Emergency Response Team training. And as I said, it's put on by the city and county at the Frank Fozzi building.

But we also have a team of people who go out into the communities. I'm the Windward cert coordinator. So we work mostly with Kailua, with kkcert, which is Kaneohe Kahulu, as well as with Haula and even Laie in some cases. And there's other folks in different parts of the island that are providing this training.

So it's really good. It teaches you basic fire safety. Most people have never used a fire extinguisher in their lives, hopefully. But we teach them how to put out a fire. Also light search and rescue, so you could go to your neighbor's house and find them and get them out safely.

We also how the team is organized, what are the different roles and disaster medical operations. In many cases, in a major disaster, the first responders cannot get to you, especially if you live in a one way, in one way out community, like the entire windward side for the most part. But even other towns have that problem.

So there's a lot of stuff, there are a lot of resources and tools for readiness, but people have to be convinced to do it. So a lot of us do go to emergency preparedness fairs. I know Dem Hyema, the police Department, the fire Department, Miku and so forth.

We go to these emergency preparedness fairs to sort of demonstrate. Look, it's easy. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to build a kit, take care of two people for 14 days. And we talk about all those things. And there are a lot of.

There's a lot of help on the Internet and at the websites of all the emergency management agencies. But resilience hubs is great because it's there 567 days a week doing good things for people. And in an emergency, it's a trusted place. People know about it because they've interacted with it.

And the goal of my spiel is to say, and cert teams will absolutely surround and help those hubs when they exist. This is the Oahu Cross Island Community Resilience Network. These are all people who have gone through the HARP training over the last 10 years. And these are all groups that have cert teams around.

Now there are a couple of hubs on the windward side that I'm showing here. One is the key project in Kahalu. The other is in Haula, Haula Emergency Leadership Program with Dottie. And the fact is, they've been hubs for years and years and years, long before Covid but especially during Covid they rose up and helped the community.

But we also go to those places and teach cert and they teach first aid. And all the things that Vibrant talked about, Janice talked about are perfect places for that. So we can build a team of people who are willing to help in gray skies, black skies, and we Also communicate.

You can see the lines communicating from each group down to the Department of Emergency Management, EOC. That's the blue polygon on the left. And then ultimately to Hi-ema. And Hi-ema connects all the other counties in a real big emergency. So the reality is this hub and spoke concept is really helpful.

And we actually exercised this in drills that we do during Makani Pahili for tsunami awareness or earthquake. Prepare to drop, cover and hold. Great shakedown, shakeout. So these are networks that actually already exist. And so as new hubs pop up in these other communities, we're absolutely going to be able to support them.

We've trained thousands of people on this island through cert. It first started here in 1995. So we've been training people every year and we have a lot more training going on. And last. Any questions? I guess maybe that's at the end.

Yes, we'll have lots of questions. I want to reassure the public that all of the slide presentations we have will be placing it on our Public Safety Committee website so it will be available for everyone and they can access those resources. Again, I want to just note, cert, we use.

We use acronyms a lot, but CERT is again, Community Emergency Response Teams. And it's an effort that's supported by the city and county of Honolulu.

Well, in each of the counties and HYMA for that matter. I mean, it's originally a FEMA program, but ultimately now the leadership is here.

And I also want to acknowledge that we have Dottie. I'm sorry, from the Windward Resiliency Hub. We also have representatives from the Be Ready Manoa CERT team that they. They began setting up, I think, over 10 years ago.

2014.

2014. So for our colleagues, we will share this information. And I think that the notion of getting more groups and it doesn't have to be a whole community, it can even just be smaller communities. An entire condominium that might house hundreds of people could be CERT trained.

And so this is a resource that's available across the islands in different forms with the different counties. We're going to Turn now to Dr. Miku Lenentine, who's a coordinator with the KCC Cerene program, which stands for Community Engagement for Resilient Neighborhoods. And it's out of KCC, right? That's right. All right. I've interacted with Dr. Miku. I just.

Can I just call you Dr. Miku?

Yes, yes, of course.

On a number of occasions in community. And she is really helping, I think, networks across the State from her perch with KCC and so wanted to hear from her and her thoughts. Kind of an overview oversight from the Serene Project.

So go ahead, Dr. Miku. Thank you so much, Representative Belatti. So she did a great job with the acronym. So yes, we're based out of Kapiolana Community College, Serene Community Engagement for Resilient Neighborhoods. But I'm also the co coordinator of the Oahu Resilience Hub Learning Community.

And I think somewhere online I'm joined by my colleague Atelina Passi with Lahui Foundation. And just for fun in the room here, actually at the back of the room we have some of our student leaders, next generation youth who are also active with resilience hubs joining us today.

So thank you for the opportunity to share and it was actually awesome to have Janice go first. I think we are little by little sharing all the pieces of the things that we've been doing.

I just wanted to throw this slide up so you could just have a quick peek at some of the different partnerships and different groups that we have been working with. City Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency. I'll show you our timeline in a moment. So we have been working pretty closely with them.

They really helped kickstart things initially and then especially vibrant Hawaii. We followed a lot in their footsteps. But we're kind of newest to this, to this initiative or this, this work. And yeah, really happy to be here to trace a little bit about kind of where we came from and where we're going.

We did get the kickstart on resilience hubs working with the City Office of Resiliency with this project called Action 15 and the publication came out August 2023 and that was really at least for Oahu. Just taking a look at what's the need for resilience hubs on Oahu. What's the interest?

We did a survey, we worked for the Department of Urban Regional Planning just to assess where we're at here on Oahu. And there was a great deal of interest. So all of that's documented. You can find that report on the city's website. But then from there the funding for that ended.

But we had built up such a strong network of partners and relationships. Atelina and I wanted to keep meeting and keep doing that work. So as well as expanded into ina spaces and other ways of looking at resilience hubs.

So we moved out from there and continue to meet and did kind of a soft launch in 2024, but we didn't actually have direct funding for it.

We just kept doing the virtual meetings and all the work that we had been doing somewhere along the lines, I'm not sure exactly when, but we kind of had been talking with Janice and as they were moving here onto Oahu and they kicked off the Koolau Network and we kind of more formalized our partnership and worked with them.

So just so you can kind of see how we've all been working together and also been working with the Cross Island Resilience Network and mat. So we are all coordinating with each other. But then this last fall, we did officially receive a little bit of funding through an intergovernmental agreement.

And that allowed us to expand our capacity and do the work we really wanted to be able to do at the neighborhood scale island wide, which is a huge, you know, a huge undertaking. But this is also how we're able to bring on our staff and student leaders here.

And then looking forward, we're getting ready in June and it's purple and teal because we're doing this with the support and mentorship of Janice for Vibrant Hawaii. The Vibrant team is going to come in and help us run our very first Oahu Resilience Hub Summit here in June, which is awesome because they've done five now. Right.

So that's kind of where we came from and where we're going. And this is just a little bit of an illustration, at least for here, how the work we're doing with the Resilience Hub community is a little bit different than the Vibrant Network. And I think it's important to show this because it also shows the need.

So Vibrant Hawaii, you can see on the right, they're a coordinated network, right. So they are activating all of their hubs together when there's a disruption. They use the same templates and communication protocols. They're all trained together. There's a network level decision happening. They're doing these drills that's really, really needed. And so that's happening right now.

But for the rest of Oahu, we're trying to support that with the hub learning community. And we're working more with individual hubs, helping the hubs connect to each other, helping resource the hubs, but the hubs are the ones that are making their decision about when they activate. And so the hub learning community is basically a community practice.

And there is a need still, but not sure yet at what scale and how to launch that. So that's just to show a little bit about the differences between our work and how we're supporting here at Oahu this is our actual mission.

So we're a community practice dedicated to supporting development and resilience hubs here on Oahu and connecting this ecosystem of resilience around them. And that's our mission, support individual hubs. And we're really focused on coordinating learning and best practices. This is, it's been raised a couple times about what is a hub.

So everyone had asked like how many hubs are there on Oahu? I was like, well we can't count until we have a definition. So this is most recently adopted by the hub learning community. So it's a trusted gathering site or group that supports everyday resilience and then during a disruption support a coordinated response.

Right now we have six different working groups through the hub learning community that are actively supporting hubs. We have a neighborhood boards working group. So we're trying to learn how does that integrate with a neighborhood board system. We have our next generation group. So we're talking about how do we bring in youth.

We have a new faith based and hubs working group. They're really looking at churches and faith based groups. We've already been talking like how does CERT, right, how does CERT work with the hubs? And then we have this new ina spaces because folks that are doing work in the low, right and the forest, they can mobilize fast.

They have all the tools, right? So how does that intersect? And then of course we have all of our new new hubs that are coming on board. So those are the different working groups we have right now. And then this is a another snapshot of what are hubs.

And then also kind of a way of an introduction to some of the ones in our hub learning community. So hubs first and foremost are people. I learned this from Vibrant Hawaii at one of their summits I think is if, if the building burns down, it's the people, right? They're going to find another place to work.

So it's not just these big buildings and facilities. So resilience subs are people. They're the everyday programs. Like the Kupuna exercise program at Huiahauula Withari, right? They're supporting senior breakfast or feeding for youth and children. But what if all of those organizations had equipment and supplies, a plan and the ability to activate.

They're already active in the community, right? So it's including the preparedness kits and supplies. In the lower hand corner you can see our little cerene hub at KCC. So we actually have our own hui that we're working with within the larger college. And so we do food distribution events in partnership with Waikiki Community Center.

So hubs are pop ups. And we do that, you know, popping that up every, every semester. And that same group now can mobilize and pop up in an emergency. So it's the same kind of skill sets. And then hubs are places or sites, big or small. It could be Muriel Flanders park can be a hub.

And the Hui that's supporting restoration work there, maybe that Hui is a hub. And there's Key project, Honolulu Museum of Art. These are all in our learning community. And then Loko EA also. And we're exploring what that looks like. Wanted to put this slide up. We were kind of debating whether or not to include it, but.

So you kind of saw the blue skies every day, right? For how we support resilience. But then how do they pivot in an emergency or a disruption? So I just have the two models here.

You can see the response mode for hubs means they have their plans, they're communicating, but they have the ability to support with reliable energy. Water, gardens, food, places to store those plans. That's what the buildings could look like. But the same thing's happening on a smaller scale. Right. For the groups. Right. So that's just to show you.

And it's also like wish list of ways that we could be supported. So I included that in terms of resources and ways to connect. One of the programs that I'm most proud of is our Resilience Corps Leadership Award program. So Cerene's been running this continuously since Serene's gotten our start about four years ago.

This is the first year we've had seven cohorts go through. So student leaders receive funding to be placed with community organizations and support resilience and sustainability efforts. They get a FEMA certification. We're going to be doing psychological first aid training with them.

And then this is the first time our Resilience Core leader program can be placed at hubs. So now this program is perfectly set up so that as we have hubs, student leaders can be connected. So we're looking for hubs to host them. And if you have student leaders, you can send them our way and we'll place them.

And then this is also another way, resources for community Members. Sorry, the font's a little tiny for you guys there in the room. It's basically the hub learning community. We meet every month. It's open to everyone. Anyone who is a hub, who wants to support hubs, who wants to join a hub, form a hub.

Student leaders join any of our working Groups every month you can come and we gather and then we share tools and best practices. We bring in subject matter experts, we connect hubs to each other so the hubs can share what they're doing. And then the working groups, the working groups need. So that's open to everybody to join.

And our next gathering is March 19, and the psychological first day training is coming up. That's open for folks. I think we have a few slots left, so just putting that out there. And then as I said, we're gearing up for our first summit in June. So that's us. And we have a brand new website.

I was encouraged to share. It's totally. It's still in the works, like we're just getting started with all this, but yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share.

Thank you, Dr. Miku. You know, I wanted to share with the community and my community Members that for a representative in urban Honolulu. Right. It's so great to see the rural communities connected, that the rural communities are leading the way.

What I struggle with as a leader of an urban community is how do you connect people who are in buildings and are so used to actually being siloed? But you speak exactly about how like hubs, which is again, an amorphous term, but it could mean even just buildings.

And so when I've seen my building get activated because we're practicing fire drills, or sometimes we have that midnight fire alarm that goes off that's not a fire drill.

And we're all running downstairs in our pajamas and I have people who are looking out and saying, okay, I need to go to the 16th floor to check in on a kupuna. Right. That's the beginnings of a resiliency hub. And so really want to thank you for the resources you're providing.

And then again to the community who's watching, we're going to share this so that they know that these monthly meetings they can attend. And are they via Zoom, so anyone can attend. And if you don't think that you could be part of a hub, you certainly most can. And so this is the first step towards it.

I want to turn next to our final presenter. Then we're going to open up for questions. Our final presenter is Keali'i Lopez and Craig Gima from AARP Hawaii.

They worked obviously to focus on kupuna, who we know and I know we were very concerned about as we saw some of the missteps or, you know, what happened when the Maui wildfires hit and how we were very not actually aware how we could get and respond to our kupuna. And that was an immediate outcry that came.

And so I know AARP Hawaii has been working hard over the last year, two years to really get out in community. So I wanted them to come share what they've been doing and how they can be a resource to our community.

And some of you may already know that they are resource, but I want to really share you guys statewide. So go ahead, Kayleigh.

Absolutely. Thank you. Rep. Balati, as she indicated. I'm Keali'i Lopez. I'm the state Director for AARP Hawaii. And one of the things that Craig shared with me is that most, most people are prepared right after a disaster, partly because it's after a disaster that they realize what they should have done.

So clearly those who are engaged in resiliency hubs, cert certified communities that have prepared are again the best prepared. But the majority of people out there have not thought about this. And again, it's after a disaster.

And part of this is from Craig's experience in covering numerous disasters from tsunamis in the Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Thailand, Kauai's Kaloko Dam failure, if you folks recall that clearly, Hurricane Iniki, earthquakes in San Francisco.

But the thing to keep in mind is often after a disaster, what we often see is community Members coming together, neighbors checking on each other, people feeding one another, neighbors who are contractors. So Kika's folks, people with heavy equipment, they're taking their gear, the loaders, they're helping clear streams, helping their community Members.

And that's really what I think I heard before was immediate responders. Right. So one of the things that I think is most important for people to think about is government's going to have a lot of its resources being tapped and a lot of demand on it.

So the degree to which the community can be prepared for that is always the most important thing. So a major disaster can take government days to get to your community. So your ability to be prepared and again take care of your own ohana, but that of your neighbors is critical.

Disaster resilience has been talked about already is really people getting together. And as you already spoke of Rep. Bollotti, yes, it can be a condominium. It can also just be a block. It doesn't have to be the entire community or it can be four houses next to one another.

The degree to once your family is ready is the resiliency part. So part of the examples that again you spoke of, imagine the many people lives that can be saved. So communities like Manoa, you know, in your area Rep. Balati is how people can prepare for disasters.

That's why arp so you'll see on the screen ARP worked with FEMA to create a Disaster Resiliency Toolkit. It's a booklet with tips and templates on how to and helpful information for community leaders. We highly recommend folks who are interested in that, in addition to tapping into the resources from those who spoke before.

Myself is this guide again that AARP worked with FEMA to create. It's available online at aarp.org disasterresilience or people can go to aarp.org disaster preparedness to get more information in General about how to prepare. Next slide please. Thank you.

The reason AARP is involved in disaster resilience and disaster preparation is that kupuna are most likely to die or be seriously injured in natural disasters. We saw this in the Maui wildfires and decades before that. Before that fire was Hurricane Katrina, which was 21 years ago.

Related to Hurricane Katrina, people 75 and older accounted for half the deaths. Despite being only 6% of the population during the Maui wildfires, more than 2/3 of the deaths were people 60 and older. This happens in every disaster, but not much attention is given to the need to reduce kupuna deaths and disasters.

In the state's final report on the Maui fires, the report pointed out how many kupuna died in the disaster, but there was no information on how we could do more to protect kupuna who are vulnerable to specific so there were no specific recommendations targeted towards how to reduce kupuna deaths.

But we want to thank this Committee and the Legislature for passing a Concurrent Resolution last year asking Haemo to come up with initiatives to better prepare and prevent kupuna deaths. They've hired staff and hopefully, hopefully you'll get they get a chance.

John is here from Hyma, will be able to share with you folks the work that they've started in that regard. Next slide please. So after the Lahaina wildfires, we came to the Legislature because we saw that there weren't recommendations specific to Kupuna and we wanted to improve ways to address Kupuna disaster preparedness.

And what some of the lawmakers did was basically say, look, we know that disaster preparedness is important. A lot of that gets done in the counties. And they said, hey Kaylee, can't you folks do something about it? And we took them to heart.

So what ARP did was we worked with our national office to get funding and we hired a contractor and that that group was a St. Bernard project, which came out of the St. Bernard precinct in New Orleans, and they had had that experience of having to deal with what happened in Hurricane Katrina.

So much of what we did was we took a FEMA or a HUD plan for multifamily units, revised that specifically to address the issue of affordable Kupuna housing properties. So we know at least in that those instances those communities are taking care of Kupuna. So they developed and we have handouts here, but it's a template.

So what we wanted to do was kind of what a lot gets done. It's not rocket science, but you have to take the step. So what we did was we created a template for the property managers.

We knew that in a disaster, the degree to which property managers are prepared to help their residents address and be ready for a disaster was critical. So we worked with the county emergency management agencies, we worked with the county elderly affairs divisions, and we did webinars across the state.

We did them as county specific so they could deal with and understand what the disasters specific to their area, but also the resources specific to their counties. We did that across the islands and then we also did statewide ones.

You know, one of the questions you asked previously, Rep. Balati, was, can this template be used by condominium associations? And my answer is yes.

And what we'll do is work with, luckily, the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation that helped us inform everyone they're going to be posting and making this available, including the webinars that we did available online.

So the key there for us was recognizing that there are some differences in preparing kupuna or people who care for kupuna, having to be ready to understand what the different needs are for kupuna. Next slide. And then you'll hear if you have opportunity. But Dottie's here, Hector's here.

One of the things that ARP does is we've provided what ARP calls Community Challenge Grants. Too bad we didn't have this a couple of weeks ago because today's the deadline by 12 noon. So I don't know, you got maybe another hour to submit your application.

But it's important because from AARP's perspective, our national office has actually doubled down on the amount of money it's going to make available for Community Challenge grants. They're anywhere from $1,000 to $25,000, depending on the types of work.

And disaster preparedness is absolutely a part of it, which is why Dottie's been great being able to get, whether it's Starlink or other, other things, Walkie talkies for Be Ready Manoa. Again, it's revising and providing that resource to communities that are already doing the work right.

It's how to make it easy for folks who are already motivated and out there making getting things done. I'm going to quickly just jump to recommendations. You know, one of the things that we see is clearly having more organizations like Janice's and some of the others here are so critical community organizations that

can quickly respond because unlike the government that's trying to take care of the entire state, they can focus on what their community needs are.

One of the things that I think is important is that oftentimes making resources available to organizations like Vibrant Hawaii and others, they're able to respond very quickly, and they can be flexible and nimble in a way that sometimes is not as easy for government.

One of the things we saw that was very critical and the counties in particular, hopefully can have that flexibility, is during the pandemic when we worked with the Honolulu Executive Elder Affairs Division, they were able to be very nimble in how federal dollars that they had could be utilized to quickly mobilize and provide resources into the community.

I believe that nonprofit organizations like Vibrant Hawaii and the others that you hear, because they are independent nonprofit organizations can often respond very quickly and easily and nimbly, more so than government. Not to say that government's not important. Absolutely it is. They're a critical part of that overall continuum.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that disaster resilience is a grassroots effort and supporting communities. The degree to which the Legislature can support communities and community leaders in their efforts are critical. They do play an important role. Government is important. But these community organizations can often be there very quickly, as they indicated, immediate responders.

So again, in the end, we really do believe organizations like those that you have heard from and are already actively available, committed in your communities is great. Again, I think people out there who are hearing this rep. So thank you for scheduling.

This is just to realize you don't have to try to bring everybody together, start small and go from there. But the main point there is to start. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Kayleigh. I'm gonna ask actually all the presenters to kind of come closer to the front and then maybe I know that we have Dottie and Hector. I'm gonna exercise my discretion as a chair.

Dottie and Hector, did you wanna come forward and say a little bit about what you folks are doing in your start hubs and you can just come to the table? Will the other presenters also stand behind or sit behind them. So if they need to pull you up, we can. And that includes Janice.

And then I know that we also have someone from Hyena that I want to acknowledge. As we're moving people, I just want to tell the folks this disaster preparedness planning template that Kayleigh referred to. Again, individuals can email HIAARP to get a copy of this and you will, you'll be in, contacted, in contact with Kaylee.

I just want to thank Keali'i. Again, I think this is again, valuable resources. I know that we have Miku, Dr. Miku had mentioned that here on Oahu, we're looking at how we're using the neighborhood boards. And so in these neighborhoods, I know that Makiki is one of them that's looking at a resiliency hub for our canal area.

But Manoa and the Windward side, I don't want is it Haua area? You folks have been long doing this, and I feel like it's been an outgrowth of some of the work at the Windward board.

So if you can just briefly, briefly introduce yourselves and talk a little bit about what you guys are doing, I think that would be great for the community.

And before you do that, I want to acknowledge that in Wahiawa, another part of rural Oahu, there's actually a very, very active cert HR program where they've been training through their neighborhood board Members and they have walkie talkies and everything like that. So again, things are happening all over the communities. Dottie, you first and then Hector.

Okay, thank you, Chair. As you said, Leohaula got started. We are 501c3 nonprofit. Way back in 2011, when a gentleman from our community walked into our neighborhood board meeting and said, Dottie, do we have an emergency plan? We just saw what happened at Tokushima. What are we going to do in Haula if that happens?

I quickly tapped him on the shoulder before he left the room and I said, no, we don't have one, but we need one and you're going to help us, aren't you, Bert? He was a colonel in the military, a retired colonel, and he really stepped up and worked very hard for the next 10 years.

Now, we took this really seriously. The more you look, the more you see the issues of vulnerability in Haula and that whole region with one road in, one road out. And we don't. We have a partnership hub now. We have created that since then and we work with 20 over 20 nonprofits in our own nonprofit.

And thank God the city and county of Honolulu have given us access to an old facility they had built as a satellite city hall in Haua. And that's where we provide all our services. But do you know where that's located? Right on Kam highway right next to the ocean. It is not climate resilient in any way.

And that's why we began looking around for climate resilient facilities, but we just don't have them. If you look up and down all of Kaeloa, 26,000 people there, there's not one facility that's going to accommodate those people. There is a Kahuku elementary school on a hillside that they've named as a shelter.

But as the DEM Director said recently, none of those shelters across Oahu have ever been checked to see if they would stand up to any kind of wind resistance in a hurricane or a tsunami. We have no place to go. It's the truth. We have put together all kinds of strategies.

I just recently wrote a state GIA and proposed that we implement all of those strategies throughout all of Kuala Loa that we have been working on for over 10 years. We think they're good strategies. They work.

We do a help survey with our whole community to find out what the community needs are where the low income people are, where the kupuna are, where the people with disabilities are. And we have a database on that community and we do that every two to three years. We also have neighborhood block captains.

We've been doing that for 10 years. We also have plans for a resilience hub. We work very hard. The state gave us some funding to do the planning. We're still working with our planners because we recently had to downsize our facility because of lack of federal funding. It isn't realistic.

So we are now working with a $4.5 million budget with an earmark from 2024 and starting to break ground this year. But it's been a long trip and it's really difficult with federal funding.

We got all kinds of great funding from like Castle Foundation, Hawaii Community Foundation, AARP and others who have helped us put together enough money for planning and then also for beginning to actually implement to build a facility. And it's up on a hillside.

DLNR gave us a 65 year lease so it's out of the flood and tsunami zone. We know our people will be safe that are there, but we've had to downsize it from 1500 people as a safe room or safe facility to 600 now, 5 to 600.

And so we are working really hard on this, but we're also working really hard at the same time to serve our community in every way possible. We have five food programs that we provide throughout our community on a regular basis, monthly, daily, weekly food programs all over the place.

And we also provide help with human services, social services, education, everything from Keiki to Kupuna. I also want to mention we had a federally funded project to provide Kupuna support, navigation. So and that's. And we've been serving Kahuku Haole Hale, which is a low income Kupuna facility in Kahuku. Kahuku Haole Hale.

One way into the facility, one way out, a very fire prone area around it. They're very concerned. They're going to have a big exercise March 20 up there to help remove a lot of the combustible materials that are around that facility. But there are 64 seniors that are there.

We've been serving them senior food boxes since 2016 and we know them well. But with this project from the Federal Government, we also learned a lot more about what's going on there. There is no emergency plan and I implore you to please look into the fact that senior facilities must have emergency plans.

It's really a critical issue and I know you have a lot of things to do today and I can say so much more, but I'm going to let my colleagues start talking.

Great. I think that you provided so much information and thank you again for all the work that you're doing in organizing Hau' la for over a decade. Let's go to Hector.

On Halloween Day in 2004, the Manuel Stream overflow and the water end up at the University of Hawaii causing an $80 million damage. A lot of the Manoa community is Senior Citizen.

On 2014, a whole bunch of people, about 12 of us got together to see what we could do to be prepared for anything like this in the future. We sought direction from Rep. Isaac Choi and initially we were called the Manoa Valley Disaster Prepare and Steam.

But it was his direction that enabled us to become B Radio Manoa. We became a 501c33 nonprofit group. In 2017, Haima recognized the Be Ready Manoa as the first urban decisive preparedness group in Oahu.

Well, since then, even before then, in 2014, we started doing fairs to educate our community and those we have invited first responders, Red Cross, police, Red Cross, a whole list of them. They supported us, they were there. It was a success. Throughout the whole day we had over 4,000 people come in and out.

We used the Manoa gym to do such. After that we learned that they were receptive to what we were doing. So we start is when we became a bit ready Manoa. Then we start having cert classes. We start using the AARP programs and subsequently every year we would have seminars or fairs to educate the community.

And we, we were lucky enough to have ARP provide us with over 200 walkie talkies.

We divided the community in certain sectors and we allocated to certain sectors the people that came to the programs in case an emergency, electricity is going to be out, communications will not be available, and sometimes maybe either the phones will not be working. So the answer was the walkie talkies.

Our leader, Wes Oda, approached AARP and they were kind enough to provide us with that and what we do every first of the month, practice, talk to each other from a distance. Manoa Valley has, I would say 60% of the population is Kupuna and we are somewhere around 65,000 people in that area.

Well, we have every so often what we call round robin. We're planning one this coming in May and where we address how to prepare for the wildfires, hurricanes and flooding, how to help our neighbors, provide first aid, went to shelter in place, the survival kit and the communication. We are Members of serene. We've been there.

We applaud what everybody's doing. Basically. I don't want to talk what they've done. We're doing that. We've been doing it for a long time. Thank you.

Thank you, Hector. Before we open up for questions, I want to just acknowledge that we have John Vieira here, who's the community outreach coordinator lead for Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, and he's available to work with all the communities. And this really is kind of a network of both community and government.

I want to open up to questions and then we have 20 minutes of it, or we can also just wrap up. But 20 minutes for questions and any final, final comments. Rap Shimizu. Any questions?

Where do I start? There's so many questions. I'm just so impressed with all of your efforts. I think you guys should head a Department. I guess my comment would be I would love to see folks, and I'm sure it's already happening from what I'm hearing is coordinating your efforts and working together.

So there's as much, you know, elimination of duplicity and sharing of funds and resources because, you know, something like this must, must cost a lot. And I would hope that there's coordination in advertising for each other or getting information that's efficient because, you know, we're all seeing the same thing. Pretty much.

I mean, maybe not the same thing, but similar things. So I guess my main question would be for private entities, non profits here. How can government be better involved in supporting your efforts?

Can I ask if we can allow maybe Janice and Miku or Matthew to come up to this to the table and respond to that question? Can I say. And then you can.

Yes. Yes. I think it would be great if the state would Fund a yearly conference of emergency managers across the state, especially small communities, to come in sharing with one another on a regular basis and getting that kind of support. Support would be very useful.

Networking, getting to know us, getting to know you, talking about the needs of communities on an ongoing basis.

So annual conference for of emergency response for communities. Okay. And statewide. Yes. Okay.

Janice, Miku, do you want to respond to this? I was going to say Janice should go first. I'm sorry, I think for the camera we need to ask them to sit there, if that's okay. And then Hector and Dottie, please move to the sides and so you can be available just to jump back if you need to.

And the question is, what can government do to support these efforts?

I think actually I'm really glad Dottie said that. So the having the, in observing actually the importance of having an annual summit for Vibrant Hawaii, how important it's been for Resilience Hubs to create a sense of community also amongst those hubs, continue relationship building.

So maybe not just like an emergency conference that's really important, but also a Resilience Hub summit. Having dedicated support for that I think will be very, very important going forward. Having dedicated funding also to support Resilience Hub network coordinators as it's needed.

Because all of that relationship building, all of these communications, all the follow ups with even our staff in the back of the room, they're all like 10 hours a week. Right. So you need a lot of people to do. I still say island wide, neighborhood level, island wide.

But then it's also providing opportunities and professional development for next generation as well. So that's some of that. And then support for programs like the Resilience Core Leadership Award program where we have our young people out there, or the Resilience Academies that Janice has.

Yeah, I think of course, in addition to that equipment, all of that piece too. But funding the people, right. So we talk a lot about equipment and gear and food and we need those things. But also funding the people that are supporting all of those relationships is really important. Janice.

I would agree with what Dottie and Miku shared. And I think in addition, there's a really promising practice that's emerging with the Resilience Coalition building.

And what I see being able to leverage through that kind of network and relationships is it really cuts down on R and D. So if one community has already identified a contractor or a training or something that is really working well, a solution for even a solar generator or battery backup, then every other community doesn't have to go through that process of figuring it out all over again.

Just yesterday at the table, our counterpart on Maui was like, we'd love to do freeze dry training. I want to write a grant. And I was able to just hand over to her the entire supply list with hyperlinks that take you to every place to order every item and be like, here's what you need.

And it's that kind of resource sharing and knowledge sharing that's possible when we bring people together in something like a coalition.

Matthew, you want to add anything?

I agree. This last October, I went to the Hawaii Food Summit in Wahiawa and that was an amazing two days. It's a different group of people, but there's a lot of overlap because they're the ones who really have perfected the freeze drying and all that kind of work, which you guys are doing as well.

So I think that is important. But I also think that just things like websites, I mean, some communities have websites and some communities just don't have the capability being able to say, look, we've got some bright kids. We want to put them on creating a website. They'll walk you through customizing it.

Then each of these communities that I showed on the map and all the other communities could share. I mean, not creating it from Dirt Day one. Those are simple things that once again, if you do it in a very modular fashion, it's very simple for almost any organization.

We don't have the resources you guys have as an example, but they have amazing websites and it's very, very useful to drill down and find out. It's a great way to say, hey, we're real, we're doing this. Here's the online stuff that we've already done to get people prepared.

The trouble is things like just getting a building to do a presentation is difficult because if I rent a school, it costs money. You know, those kind of things. Even district parks have to require, you know, sponsorship. And so making that easier is a very inexpensive thing to do. But.

Well, I'm hoping after this presentation and the fact that people can see all the resources that are available that you guys will be getting phone calls. Mr. Hector, real quick and then I have a couple questions.

Yes, the. Some of the Members here have the federal or state funding. Some of the other nonprofit parents groups, they ask for money from the community or donations from the businesses around us. We have survived on donations from the community. We don't sell anything but finding a place to hold the classes.

We have equipment that we have in our homes. We have a trailer from Mattson where we cannot get a place where to put it. And we tried the sit in county and four years ago, they deny us. So we need a space to put a place where we can work from.

So I'm hearing coordination and placement is key. I want to turn to a question actually for Janice because it intrigues me that you folks Run annual exercises. Clearly Hawaii island is far, far more advanced. Do those exercises engage with the county emergency management? And. I mean, what would it take for Oahu to do something like that?

I don't even know if Oahu could do it all. I think we would have to try and do it in regions and Koola Poko could be the first one to do it. But can you walk us through what some of that means, what the exercises

look like at the onset of hurricane season? Every year for the past five years, we've been holding our summit. For the past two years, we've invited hub groups from beyond Hawaii island to join us.

And so the first year folks from Koolau came over and then last year we had representatives from every island, Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Hawaii island all came together in addition to partners from Haima. And every county's emergency management team sent a representative over to the summit.

We walk through and we have a presentation at the onset of the summit from National Weather Service. They provide us the hurricane brief season outlook. And then we walk through skills that we would like, folks over a two day period.

Specific skills in communication, in information dissemination, putting RFAs up to a liaison in emergency management in the EOC and then from the EOC down to community. And we're practicing all of these skill sets and procedures so that should there be a hurricane event that happens, we know how to operate as a coordinated network across the state.

So that's an example of what we have been doing. This year's conference is open to the public. It's open to folks from across the state. What we're doing is a deep dive. So folks wouldn't get the broad 101 in everything. They choose a track.

And we're hoping that hub teams would send five representatives and each representative would enroll in a different track. And then through that deep dive that results in a certification, go back to their communities and further build out their teams.

Wow. And this is happening?

On Hawaii island.

On what one?

In June.

It's going to be held June 12th and 13th at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

And then I'm looking at Dr. Miku because you're doing a summit on Oahu for what days I was gonna ask you about.

We're looking at the 5th and 6th of June. It's the weekend before. Okay. Actually, yeah. So good. There can be actually like a lot of cross pollination. And we are gonna, we're gonna go. Yeah, okay. Vice versa.

Can I ask another question? You know, I started off talking about how government can help. And I'm a firm believer that government can do everything. We need the public to be involved, and what you're doing is what we need. So going back to Hi-ema, thank you for being here. I'm assuming you're the appropriate State Department.

That would be the tip of the spear. And what my thought would be is we need like a ombudsman or like someone to collate all of this, coordinate it and organize it so that we're all working in coordination. Yeah. Because the stronger these people are, the better our state is and the less you guys have to do.

Right. So my question is, can that be done? Is it being done?

Can we let John come to the table? And I want to say John's title is Community Outreach Coordinator Lead. So we do have the right person here, I believe.

And don't run away from him. I don't want to put you on a spot, you know.

Thank you, Dr. Be showered. No, it's a great question. And thank you for that question, Representative. And thank you, Chair, for the opportunity. We all have been already working together. Just a little history real quick. I know time is sensitive here. In February of 2023, Administrator Baros took on Hi-ema as the new administrator.

In May of 2023, I was hired the first position of community outreach. There was no dedicated community outreach position. Now, December of that year, we hired our community Outreach coordinator, which is holy cow in the back of the room there.

Since then, now we've opened up and opened ourselves up to the communities and all of the organizations and all the leaders and said, hey, what's going on with resilience? What's the map of connectivity across the state? And we did that. Fast forward to today. Now we have seven on our team in community outreach. We.

We have five preparedness programs that we have not yet put out outside of the counties, because we're still working this through with the county level administrators. Because Hyima's job is to support the counties. And this is why. Not yet in the hands of all of the great leaders here do we have this bundle, this package, bundle of.

Here's what we're doing now. With that said, though, in order to get to this point, I've had conversations with all of the panelists here today and a lot of the people in this room. So we are informed, we have been listening.

And so what our job is now and what we've come to is we've designed a framework to then coordinate as the state across the state.

And this is where Our primary program, the HR program, came from 2011 through Pacific disaster center and Haima, and it went through its phases in what was called HARP at the time, same acronym, Hawaii Hazards Awareness and Resilience Program.

But now we rebranded it starting in 2024 as H harp because what we've changed is that is our ability to execute. Because now we have a team, which means now when we go out to the communities, when we discuss with the organizations and the leaders in the community, we're able to follow up and then coordinate further.

So as we push forward, 2026 is our baseline year. Here's where we're seeing. All right. We know all the pieces, all the communities, who's doing what. Now we're starting from here, and we're creating some metrics moving forward. How do we measure in the next five years our growth in coordination with the communities?

I love hearing that. Before I forget, can I get all of your contact information? And if you guys have any GIA requests, please see me today so I can send memos to our GIA head person to advocate for you. And just following up, I heard you say you're working through the county.

So do we need the counties to kind of step it up or.

Well, I wouldn't say step it up. The counties are active. They have been working with us. We've been working with them. And really the beauty of the counties is the county emergency managers are the ones working directly with the communities. Right. Jaima doesn't get in front of the counties.

So what we're saying is on Jaima's end, we go from the federal level, through the state, work our way through the county through the communities. And the communities now working opposite, within their own communities, in their spaces, working through county level em with then Haima and the other way around. So the counties need somebody like you. Right?

So they do. Yeah, they do. And so we're strengthening that. And a lot of this has come from, again, the communities themselves saying, hey, here's what is needed.

Right. Yeah. So can I ask you to exercise your authority and hold these counties accountable and look for progress with these.

That's our job. That's our job. I think holistically we'll get to that point. I don't think. Yeah, but yes, yes, this is what we're strengthening.

Yeah, we need help in those areas, for sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think this is a hidden disaster that's possibly ready to happen. And, you know, I mean, me, I'm a. I'm a kupuna.

And when I look at this, I'M like, zero, I rather just read the paper, you know, I mean, so the preparedness is something like we're just, it's not gonna happen or one of these days, you know, so absolutely, you know, I applaud Dottie and Hector and Janice and, you know, all of you. Thank you so much.

So we got five more minutes. What I'm going to do is I'm going to make some closing comments, but I'm going to work backwards this time and allow Dr. Miku to say something in closing. And then, Janice, since you started off, you're going to get the final, final word before I adjourn.

What I guess I want to share is that to the AARP presentation, when you mentioned that Hurricane Katrina was 21 years ago, when they were having the celebrations this past summer, my daughters watch that and were telling me, mom, what happened in Katrina. And they were watching all of those videos and seeing how the communities work.

And it was jarring to me because I had lived through that. But my daughters are 20 and 15, so they wouldn't have. So that was their seeing and understanding. And we had just gone through the fires. And so it's in the minds of even young people, how are we going to help our community survive?

So I applaud the young people who are here and that you guys are activating them. But that's super important. I want to just mention a couple of words that I kept hearing throughout the presentations. I heard community, proactive, being trained, impact, having impact, being flexible, trusted. Another word I kept hearing was learning networks, learning communities.

And then I think other really important words to me were everyday people working through problems, but then pivoting when there needs to be a coordinated response. And I want to end with these two terms. I kept hearing communities of practice because readiness is not just a one day thing.

It's 10 years of practice so that when that disaster hits, we are ready and we can mobilize and we all need to do that. So I really want to echo and just say and applaud what you folks are doing from my perch here.

You know, we have bills that we're looking at for funding bills that may not move but are. The conversations have started. We have a Bill at Hospital 2457. We were looking just for some seed funding for pilot programs to help nurture what's happening.

Hyema has come in with Hospital 1060 last year when they were talking about community readiness centers. We've had community Members step forward and call for Hurricane 5 shelters. And you know, in this Time of incredible, incredible change in government. Right now, FEMA is looking at how they're going to restructure.

So that's another conversation level that we haven't even talked about and how they're going to restructure emergency funding. So while all these things are happening at the federal level, at the state level, communities are still working. And we recognize that. And so we will keep having the conversations.

Whatever happens with these bills, it's important that the conversation has started and that we will look for funding in different ways and different mechanisms whether any of these bills survive or not.

And there's all kinds of ways we do that through grants and aid funding, through line item funding for the, for the departments and then through the community, you know, network and the philanthropy communities that I know have also stepped up and been a part of this community. We will keep doing that. That's my commitment from this Committee.

And let's just keep moving forward. I want to turn it over to Dr. Miku and then. Janice, you're going to have the last word.

Dr. Miku's commitment even after she leaves the Legislature. Oh, absolutely.

This is stuff and the key now, Hub, right? Yeah. Well, I just want to thank you again for the opportunity to present and share and also for bringing all of us together. This has really been really important. And even though we do all work together, having an outside energy to do this is so critical.

So I think, I guess, closing things. I'm an environmental science professor at KCC and one of the things I guess I just want to lift up that I think we sometimes don't talk about is the link between sustainability, resilience and emergency preparedness. And that just this idea of go. I say this to my students.

The world is getting harder and, and more complex, more challenging. We're gonna continue to face that.

And so it's really important that we support our communities to prepare ourselves so that we can remember to do this, but also invest in the next generation to do that because they'll need to have the skillsets so when we can do programs for Keiki learning these skill sets. Right.

So how do children respond when they get an emergency alert on their phone? So that every student in my sustainability class that learns about sea level rise and climate impacts also has their go kit that they all have it. And I know they all have their alerts on their phones. Right.

So I think that's the biggest thing for me is just remembering that larger picture link. We continue to build the skill sets in our community, our family, our homes and our next generation to prepare. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Miku. Janice.

Mahalo for the opportunity. And I think one of the most powerful tools that legislators hold is, is the power of words, and words matter. And I would just really ask on behalf of communities that have been doing this work for many, many years that their work is recognized and reflected in the.

In the policy that you're drafting and that you would consider replacing things like to create or to pilot. It is received like what has been happening hasn't been noticed or recognized or valued. And we want to put energy into the work that folks have been doing for so many years as volunteers.

And to recognize that through language in your written legislation, I think would be so affirming and would give so much energy, whether there's funding that's tied to it or not.

Just to see it written down, that we see what you've been doing and we value what you've been doing would really go a long way in continuing to energize the movement. So that would be my request.

Thank you, Janice. And that's a beautiful request. And that's. That's something that we can do. We definitely can reframe and change our language. So thank you all to the community. We will have all of these slides available, and we will make sure that all of these conferences get publicized through our various networks.

I know that my colleagues are going to be very excited about opportunities for their communities to learn, so we will be sharing this with you all. So thank you very much. It is now 11:32, and we are adjourned.