NAALEHU, Hawaii island >> The signs of recovery are beginning to emerge in this small South Hawaii
community.
Stores are open. People are returning to work. Gas is available. Community gatherings have resumed. But for many residents of Kau District, the effects of Hurricane Lala are far from over.
Just over a month after the storm devastated parts of the district, residents are still dealing with damaged or destroyed homes, lost vehicles, disrupted water systems and the emotional toll of watching their community suffer.
Marcia Masters, team lead for the Naalehu Resilience Hub, said the community is beginning to move from simply getting through the disaster to figuring out how to recover.
“We’re going from reliance to resilience,” Masters said.
The Naalehu Resilience Hub has been helping connect residents with resources and support since the storm. Masters said the community has made progress, but significant needs remain — particularly housing.
Some residents who lost their homes are now staying in Kona and commuting to Kau to work, she said. While their lodging may be covered, the additional costs of transportation, food and other necessities can quickly become overwhelming.
Some residents also lost their vehicles.
“We had some furniture donated. We’ve had a fairly new propane stove donated, and people are thankful,” Masters said, but much of those donations cannot be put to use until displaced residents have homes to put them in.
Masters said the need extends beyond physical supplies. The storm also has left many residents dealing with trauma.
“We had the Bon Dance on Saturday, and the turnout was wonderful,” she said. “To see that spirit of remembrance, as well as being able to enjoy the time together … I think people are trying to move forward.”
Masters said several therapists have reached out about providing workshops and other services to
residents.
“Everyone, in my opinion, experienced trauma from this,” she said. “Each one of us processes everything so differently.”
State Rep. Jeanne Kapela (D, Volcano-Hawaiian Ocean View) said the initial emergency response has increasingly given way to the more difficult work of long-term recovery.
Kapela helped establish a supply hub that collected donations from West Hawaii and elsewhere in the state and moved them into Kau.
Over roughly two and a half to three weeks, she said the effort brought in nearly $100,000 worth of supplies and about 75 truckloads of goods.
The effort also provided 73 generators to residents.
Kapela said the response demonstrated the value of established community hubs, which already had relationships with residents and were able to quickly
receive and distribute donations based on local needs.
But supplies and generators can only go so far.
Kapela said the district still faces extensive cleanup and infrastructure needs,
including damaged water transmission lines and the need to reassess flood risks.
She said new flood maps are needed for the area after the extreme rainfall associated with Lala.
The storm also damaged water transmission lines coming from two tunnels that serve the community. Kapela estimated rebuilding each transmission line could cost about $15 million, or roughly $30 million combined.
“Long-term recovery … is a long, long recovery,” Kapela said.
She also pointed to a
particular challenge for communities such as Green Sands, where the Department of Water Supply is responsible for delivering water to a meter, while individual residents are responsible for getting water from the meter to their homes.
Those privately maintained lines, which some residents have referred to as “spaghetti lines,” were also damaged.
Kapela said she is looking at ways the county and community potentially could work together to create a more durable system for those residents, even where government responsibility does not extend directly to individual homes.
“This is going to happen again,” she said. “We have to figure out how to, as a community, weather and harden some of these pieces of valuable infrastructure.”
The storm also has raised questions about how Hawaii responds to disasters that can isolate communities.
Kapela said there is a need for a clearer, long-term disaster management strategy — including who takes responsibility for specific tasks and how quickly agencies and community organizations can coordinate.
“When you look at the Department of Transportation, they have done a really good job of being able to open up those roadways,” she said.
At the height of the disaster, however, the community was effectively cut off, she said.
“Having a playbook in place and looking at what worked and what didn’t, is going to be key for preventing disasters that are going to continue to happen,” Kapela said.
The need for a long recovery is particularly apparent in Kau, where residents already have faced multiple disasters this year.
“Within the span of six months, my district got hit by Kona lows,” Kapela said, pointing to the cumulative damage from the year’s storms and other disasters.
She said the state Department of Education alone has identified about $36 million in damage at a single school complex in her district.
Kapela said recovery efforts must remain a priority even as public attention shifts to other issues. She said she has been working with state, county and federal officials to coordinate recovery, while also talking with environmental funders about building more climate-resilient communities.
“A disaster doesn’t just disappear. People are so quick to change depending on what’s a hot topic,” she said. “Recovery isn’t hot.
Recovery is painful.”
For residents who lived through Lala, the emotional exhaustion can be as difficult as the physical cleanup.
Lynn Crysdale, a 73-year-old Waiohinu resident, said she remains anxious as hurricane season continues. Tropical Depression 15-E is expected to strengthen into Tropical Cyclone Nolo in the coming days, adding to residents’ uncertainty after Lala.
“I’m depleted. Fatigued,” she said.
Crysdale lives in a trailer and said water and mud from the storm passed underneath it rather than destroying the structure.
But she lost a recently purchased washing machine.
“It sucks, but it’s just a washing machine,” she said. “I’m grateful because at least I’m OK.”
She said neighbors and others in the community have continued to help. Just a day before the interview, people stopped by her trailer to drop off eggs and other supplies.
Even small acts of assistance have become part of the recovery.
Crysdale recently brought her grandchildren into the area to get ice cream. She said they were able to get some melted ice cream after the freezer had been affected.
As they walked through a park, one of her grandsons noticed bones.
For Crysdale, moments like that underscore how much the landscape and daily life around her have changed. She hopes a sense of normalcy will return, but said the trauma of the storm continues to weigh on residents, each experiencing and processing it in their own way.
The devastation also has been felt by people who do not live in the district but have longstanding connections to Hawaii.
Patricia DuMond, 73, and her husband, Cliff DuMond, 81, traveled from San Francisco to Hawaii for their annual visit. The couple has been coming to the islands for more than 30 years and planned a six-week trip around the state this year.
They were home when Hurricane Lala hit Hawaii, watching videos and news coverage as the storm
battered the islands.
Cliff said watching videos of familiar places — including some of their favorite spots — being washed away was deeply emotional.
“It made me cry for days,” he said.
They later experienced Hurricane Lowell firsthand while staying at Lawai Beach Resort on Kauai, where they remained despite losing electricity.
After Lowell, the couple traveled to Hawaii island, and they saw the aftermath of Lala for themselves.
Patricia said many of the places damaged by Lala had become part of their Hawaii traditi