Hawaiʻi needs its own version of the armada that pulled thousands of Texans out of the floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey.
That’s what I wrote in these pages in 2017 after small boat owners rescued more than 2,000 people and provided follow-up care for those in cut-off communities, supplementing the work of government first responders.
That was nine years ago. Since then, we’ve had the devastating fire in Lahaina in 2023, and then this year, the Kona low storm and the sideswipe of Hurricane Lala, which cut off roads and left communities without power, water and supplies.
The need isn’t so much for search and rescue, but for the days after — when the roads are gone and the harbor is jammed and someone still must get baby formula and food to Waimānalo, or a rural stretch of the Big Island the highway no longer reaches…