Along with the sudden flood of water and rain that hit Laie on Thursday, December 11, a rush of volunteer work and service flooded Laie the week following including organized efforts hosted on the Brigham Young University Hawaii campus. An American Red Cross shelter and Disaster Relief and Assistance Center (DARC) both used University facilities as a point of contact for their efforts as Laie and BYU–Hawaii is central to one of the hardest hit areas, making use of State, University, and community volunteers to help abate the affects of the sudden disaster.
BYUH Physical Plant’s Judd Whetten reported that aside from 18 homes in the community that were hit in varying degrees ousting residents. Temple View Apartment (TVA) buildings Q and R were hit "fairly severely" along with the General Classroom Building (GCB) and the Multi Purpose Center (MPC) being hit the hardest displacing faculty and staff. TVA’s P building and Hales 5 and 6 also received damage though not as severe. "It’s been a crazy week!" said Whetten. Physical Plant workers have been working over time pull out carpets, remove lower sheet rock, and dehumidify buildings after receiving student and community help directed mostly at TVA and community homes. Sandbags accumulated to between three and four thousand. "We really appreciate their efforts," said Whetten.
TVA flood waters
Red Cross has emergency relief procedures in place for the Laie area that are run with the help of many trained BYU–Hawaii employees and volunteers and is hosted by BYU–Hawaii with its two Red Cross certified buildings: the Cannon Activities Center (CAC) and the Old Gym. For the past week, the longest in its history, the Old Gym has been opened as a Red Cross Shelter available for flood victims serving an average of ten to twelve people including two families that were severely affected by the flood.
Miller family finds refuge at BYUH Red Cross shelter
BYUH shelter coordinators include director of Housing and Residential Life John Elkington as well as Isileli Kongaika as the shelter coordinator for the BYUH stake center which was used primarily for student relief, and Eugenia Lawrence as the shelter coordinator for the CAC reserved for community relief and the Old Gym as an overflow. "We’re really thankful that it’s on a smaller scale right now because this is an experience," said Lawrence. "If it were full, we’d be running around looking for more volunteers because we’re really short staffed and we need more volunteers." Because of this experience, local Red Cross leads now have a better idea of the required efforts needed in a disaster and are making plans to train and prepare for future disasters.
"BYU–Hawaii is obviously right in the middle of a lot of people who were affected by the weather," said Rick Stercho of the State of Hawaii Civil Defense Department assisting at the BYUH DARC. "The purpose of the Disaster Assistance and Recovery Center is to come in and offer as many services as we can... So what we’ve done is...ask other state and local and non governmental agencies like Red Cross, Salvation Army, and Aloha United Way to come in and to allow people who have been affected by the disaster to come in and do a one stop stop-and-go approach to getting any kind of help that might be available. We’re trying to make it convenient for people by centralizing it here and allowing people to come in and work with different agencies in just one trip."
"Come and just see if there’s anything these agencies can do for you...and let us know what your needs are and what damages you’ve had and see if there’s any help that you can get," said Stercho. DARC will be open on the BYUH campus a second time on Saturday, December 20, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m in Aloha Center room 155. Other organizations available at DARC include Department of Land and Natural Resources, Department of Health for information on health issues, mold, asthma, etc., Department of Taxation, Department of Community Service. Hawaii State Civil Defense is also offering debris removal through organizations including the National Guard. "Aloha United Way has furniture and bedding," said Stercho. "Salvation Army has food and clothing vouchers...along with occasionally providing some rental assistance. Red Cross also provides rental assistance to some degree plus Red Cross comfort kits of free toiletries and clean up kits to people that have been hit by the flooding."
"[At] the same time we are also gathering information," said Stercho. Not only providing relief, DARC hopes to collect damage figures to report to national organizations and gain further disaster assistance from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "If we can find enough people with major damage or destruction to their homes then FEMA will declare this a federal disaster area...and when that happens federal grant money is available for people who had losses," Stercho explained.
Local church authorities assisted in assessing and reporting the depth of the damages by helping to report affected families and homes in their areas as well. "The heaviest hit area was Naniloa Loop (Laie 6th Ward)," said Lawrence, "and then we got responses back from Laie 9th, 8th, and 4th Ward. The Moana Street individuals, most of them are faculty members, [so] the school took care of those individuals and the individuals in TVA." Largely affected areas include Laie and also Haleiwa, Waianae, and Waimanalo. "The more people that come in and tell us the kind of damages they had, the better," said Strercho. "The thing that we don’t want to have happen is for someone who has had major damage to be sitting back there trying to work it out on their own and not looking for assistance. We need to know where they are."
When a shelter is needed Red Cross calls its coordinators and from there, volunteers and Physical Plant get involved setting up the shelters and signs, etc. "When the call came [from Red Cross] Thursday to open up the shelter," explained Lawrence, "a lot of the people that were my leads to help set up, their houses were being flooded." Physical Plant was busy sand bagging University buildings so the help came from friends and volunteers called that day.
Red Cross Volunteers
While the community falls under the Red Cross, the university assists in providing relief for its students. The BYUH stake center was open as a shelter to students for a limited time, however, in order to consolidate efforts in this small scale disaster students were directed over to the Red Cross shelter. "Red Cross doesn’t turn anyone away that needs shelter," said Lawrence.
During the past week, registered visitors of the shelter have been fed through BYU-Hawaii Food Services due to a contract with the Red Cross with an agreement for reimbursement. In other situations, Red Cross depends on other local food vendors, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. In order to avoid students taking excessive advantage of the relief efforts available to those in need, BYUH Housing Department determined a list of students in need of meal tickets according to damages affected.
A lot has been done over the past week in the wake of the flood as groups of sandbaggers tuned into groups of clean up volunteers ripping out carpet. "The school right now is taking a look at how we can better service our BYUH ‘ohana plus the community," said Lawrence. In an effort to better coordinate the help that was provided over the past week, local Red Cross leads, with the help and coordination of Debbie Hippolite Wright, BYUH VP for Student Development & Services, are looking at arranging student volunteer groups to be organized, trained, and prepared for future catastrophes. "We are looking at least getting 20 percent of BYUH volunteers to assist in the shelter and have it on an on going rotating type of basis so that we can run the shelter and not just have a few individuals run it because it’s a twenty-four seven operation... We’re hoping that down the road in the future we’ll have a better organized group of individuals that can help service the shelter and for a group of student who can assist in the shelter and can also go out into the community and help."
Students help sandbag TVA
"I believe that you plan for it, but even [with] a well laid out plan there’s always going to be a snag to it so you just have to be flexible and be prepared," said Lawrence. "We just appreciate everyone that’s been willing to come and help out."
:: Read more about the December 11 flood damage in Laie ::
— Red Cross shelter photos by BYU-Hawaii Photographer Ian Nitta
— TVA photos by resident Cecilia Yiu Chan