When it comes to climate change, City & County of Honolulu Department of Emergency Services (DES) director Jim Howe is already taking steps to deal with what\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is here. This is real. We have a choice. \u2026 We can adapt or just kinda wait until we get our okoles kicked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As the city\u2019s former longtime ocean safety chief and DES director since 2017, Howe has spent a lot of time thinking about the many ways people can get hurt or killed on the island. And he\u2019s keenly aware of the new challenges climate change is likely to pose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re kind of in the life and death business here. We see death quite frequently. How to manage that keeps me up at night quite frankly,\u201d he told the city\u2019s Climate Change Commission at its June 5 meeting.<\/p>\n
With rising temperatures expected to bring more intense storms to the islands and raise sea levels, he said \u201cour ocean conditions are going to become more hazardous,\u201d adding that drowning is the leading cause of visitor deaths and will continue to be.<\/p>\n
As a first step, his department has devised a prototype design for mobile lifeguard stands. Waves have already stolen much of Kualoa Beach Park on the windward side of O`ahu over the years, and a portable stand would likely be necessary to continue to support lifeguards there, as well as other beaches. \u201cThe tower at Kailua, we\u2019ve moved it three times. At Sunset Beach, three times. The ones at Waikiki are beginning to fail,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
The new portable towers, which he said will be equipped with solar power, will allow the city to maintain ocean safety as shorelines continue to erode.<\/p>\n
Fixed structures on the beaches are not sustainable \u201cand even now we are at great risk,\u201d he said. Severe erosion at Sunset Beach, for example, recently left a lifeguard station there on the verge of a 30-foot sand cliff, forcing the city to remove it for safety reasons. \u201cThat impacts [the lifeguards\u2019] ability to do their job now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When it comes to privately owned structures near the shore, he views any protective hardening, such as a seawall, as an \u201cattractive nuisance\u201d that can lead to injury and death.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have to try to manage those \u2026 try to police it. That usually doesn’t work. We can try to educate people to stay away from it. That usually doesn’t work,\u201d he said. Given that, he suggested retreating from the shoreline and demolishing abandoned structures was probably best.<\/p>\n
Pathogens<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Howe\u2019s ocean-related concerns go well beyond beach erosion caused by rougher waves and higher seas. Storm flooding will further erode beaches and affect nearshore water quality, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the soils here, we have Pseudomonas<\/i>,\u201d he said, referring to a bacteria that can cause deadly infections to the immunocompromised. \u201cWe also have staph\u201d \u2014 another pathogen \u2014 \u201cin the soil. We\u2019re going to start seeing some chronic health issues,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n
A 2016 article, \u201cClimate Change: A Public Health Challenge and Opportunity for Hawai\u2019i,\u201d by Samantha Hudson of the American Institute of Certified Planners and published in the Hawai`i Journal of Medicine and Public Health,<\/i> noted that sewage discharges due to storm flooding can also send pathogens into the ocean, triggering beach closures to protect public health and safety.<\/p>\n
To Howe, the problem seems almost intractable. \u201cHow do we keep people from going into the ocean? It has economic impacts. What does that do to our visitor industry?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
He noted that the state is starting to speak up more when it\u2019s not safe to go into the ocean, but there\u2019s no real way to stop people from going in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to double down now [on educating people] if were going to have a successful visitor industry. \u2026 Otherwise we\u2019re going to get a reputation as a great place to come to get hurt,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Disaster Preparedness<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Howe pointed to a very recent example of the critical health issues that can arise after an extreme flooding event in an area where the only road in or out becomes impassable. After severe flooding effectively cut off the North Kaua`i towns of Wainiha and Ha`ena from the rest of the island in April, Howe said doctors had to be flown in to set up a clinic. With so many cesspools in the area, Howe said there was a concern about children contracting bacterial gastroenteritis, which can cause vomiting, severe abdominal cramps, and diarrhea. There were also a lot of septic wounds, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look at Puerto Rico\u201d \u2014 which was devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017 \u2014 \u201cas an example. If something like Kaua`i would happen for a longer term \u2026 negative impacts of diabetes [would] cause of lot of deaths,\u201d he said. In Puerto Rico, the New York Times <\/i>reported that there was a 46 percent increase in death due to diabetes last year compared to the two previous years. \u201cMany people with diabetes had difficulty keeping insulin refrigerated, and some had trouble maintaining special diets,\u201d the paper reported.<\/p>\n
Having adequate medicines is a key component in hurricane preparedness, but is never talked about, Howe said. People are told to have a 14 day supply of food and water, but there is a substantial portion of the community that is 65-years old or older that also require medicines, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 35 percent of the population on O`ahu. [That\u2019s] a lot of medically fragile folks who are aging in place at home,\u201d he said, adding that at the same time, \u201cwe have medical supply shortages. Nationally, not just here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, we have a very good supply chain with Amazon and UPS,\u201d he said, expressing his worry that relying too much on home-delivered medicine may lead to the closure of local pharmacies, \u201cwhich means we\u2019ll have less supply on island in case of emergency. We saw this happen on Kaua`i. The postal services could not deliver \u2026 The medicines were being airlifted in. \u2026 This is something that\u2019s an emerging trend. How that\u2019s going to play out is hard to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howe\u2019s bleak assessment prompted commissioner Victoria Keener to question the finding of a journal article, published last year, which concluded that climate change didn\u2019t pose a significant public health risk to the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter hearing this kind of thing \u2026,\u201d Keener said, referring to Howe\u2019s litany of concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI might differ,\u201d Howe finished.<\/p>\n
The paper \u2014 by Deon Canon (Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies), Frederick Burkle (Harvard Humanitarian Initiative), and Rick Speare (Tropical Health Solutions Pty. Ltd.) \u2014 analyzed potential health risks posed by air pollution, extreme heat and weather, and ultraviolet radiation. The abstract for the article, \u201cHealth Security in Hawaii by 2050: The Physical Effects of Climate Change,\u201d published in the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management<\/i>, stated, \u201c[G]eneric climate change impacts are often used to justify actions without adequate supporting local evidence. \u2026 Hawai`i\u2019s natural geography, robust water, and sanitation infrastructure render the islands less vulnerable to many of the often-mentioned climate change threats.\u201d The authors called the health security threat posed to Hawai`i by climate change over the next 35 years \u201cslight in most areas and moderate with regard to ecosystem health.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, Howe pointed out that communities across the island \u2014 especially those in danger of losing access to critical services if a single road washes out \u2014 are working with government agencies to establish emergency preparedness teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy concern is the North Shore with 20 to 30 thousand visitors going out there a day. It\u2019s becoming quite crowded. If we were to have some kind of shock, many would not get back to Waikiki,\u201d he said, adding that the Leeward coast is also seeing more and more visitors.<\/p>\n
Similar to Ha`ena, the Leeward Coast only has one way in and out: Farrington Highway. It also lacks a major emergency medical facility and many of the evacuation shelters are located in close proximity to the ocean, Hudson stated in her article.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis vulnerability compounds with the social vulnerability of Wai`anae Coast residents, which includes a large proportion of elderly (over 65), youth (under 18), and people living below the poverty line. Flooding from storm surge and heavy rains have led to closures of Farrington Highway in the past. Sea level rise and more extreme storm events will increasingly contribute to erosion of the roadway,\u201d she wrote, suggesting that cross-sector planning with various state, county, and private entities was needed to assesses critical infrastructure vulnerabilities holistically.<\/p>\n
Unless these vulnerabilities are addressed, Howe sees potential conflicts during emergencies, given the increasing number of visitors to areas where there may be nowhere for them to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we tell our community to take these folks in?\u201d Howe asked the commission. After the floods on Kauai, he said, there was some friction (as well as some fist fights) between locals and outsiders, but after a few days, they eventually bonded and \u201cgot past the \u2018who\u2019s going to get out first\u2019 mentality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
***<\/b><\/p>\n
Commission Approves<\/b><\/p>\n
Sea Level Rise Guidance\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
At its June 5 meeting, the commission unanimously approved its official guidance on sea level rise, which includes several recommendations aimed at preventing the kinds of disasters Howe described earlier that day. Commissioner Chip Fletcher said they were the most comprehensive sea level rise recommendations in the United States.<\/p>\n
How, when, or whether city agencies will take steps to codify any of the recommendations remains to be seen. But if they\u2019re ever implemented, they would achieve some of the goals of bills that the state Legislature failed to meet this year.<\/p>\n
The recommendations call for \u201cdisclosure on all real estate sales, City Property Information Sheets, and all other real estate transactions\u201d of lands that fall within the 3.2 ft. and 6 ft. sea level rise exposure areas (SLR-XA) identified in last year\u2019s Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report.<\/p>\n
They also called for the city amend its special management area (SMA) boundaries to include lands in the 3.2 SLR-XA that aren\u2019t already, and adopt the 3.2 ft. and 6 ft. SLR-XAs as hazard overlays for planning purposes, including in the general plan and sustainable community development plans. Basically, the recommendations call on all relevant city agencies to use the 2017 Hawai\u02bbi Sea Level Rise Vulnerability and Adaptation Report and online Viewer, for planning and land use regulation revision in general, as well as infrastructure assessment, \u201cto mitigate impacts to infrastructure and critical facilities related to sea level rise.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission\u2019s final recommendation: that these agencies be given the resources and capacity necessary to implement the recommendations \u201cand proactively plan for sea level rise, as it will rapidly become a major challenge to city functions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The approved recommendations are fewer and intended to be more workable than the set Fletcher and commission chair Makena Coffman unveiled in early May. (For more on this, see, \u201cCity Climate Change Commission Drafts \u2018Revolutionary and Inconvenient\u2019 Rules<\/a>,\u201d from our June 2018 issue.)<\/p>\n \u2014 Teresa Dawson<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When it comes to climate change, City & County of Honolulu Department of Emergency Services (DES) director Jim Howe is already taking steps to deal with what’s coming. “This is here. This is real. We have a choice. … We … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,438],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-10472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change","category-july-2018","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}