Public Safety and Human Services Committee Meeting on Emergency Preparedness and Refuge Areas - June 24, 2026
Public Safety and Human Services Committee Meeting on Emergency Preparedness and Refuge Areas - June 24, 2026
The Public Safety and Human Services Committee of the Kauai County Council convened on June 24, 2026, to receive a briefing from the Kauai Emergency Management Agency (KEMA) on public messaging for disasters and updates on emergency refuge areas. The meeting also included brief consent calendar items for other committees. The discussion highlighted the need for personal preparedness, the limitations of public shelter capacity, and ongoing efforts to improve alert systems and shelter infrastructure.
Consent Calendar
- Minutes of the May 27, 2026, Parks and Recreation Transportation Committee meeting – Approved unanimously.
- Minutes of the May 27, 2026, Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting – Approved unanimously.
- Minutes of the May 27, 2026, Finance and Economic Development Committee meeting – Approved unanimously.
- Minutes of the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget deliberation and preliminary decision-making session – Approved unanimously.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Lonnie Sykos (testifying twice): Asked for an estimate of human death and building destruction from a Category 3, 4, or 5 hurricane, given shelter capacity of 6,000. Stated that FEMA and KEMA are not tasked with keeping individuals safe; the public is on their own. Advised personal hardening, citing his own plan to build a hollow-tile carport refuge. Warned that social media and dynamic pricing will hinder recovery.
- Bruce Hart: Questioned how much the county is willing to fund KEMA activities given federal funding uncertainties. Suggested contracting with private disaster response companies. Proposed underground shelters for Category 4/5 storms.
- Helena Oakman: Noted she did not receive the Everbridge test alert. Asked how to connect the local system with the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system that worked during the missile false alarm. Emphasized the need for community education and care for vulnerable populations.
Discussion Items
KEMA Briefing on Public Messaging and Emergency Refuge Areas
- Elton (Emergency Management Administrator), Sarah Lux (Staff Specialist), and Patrick Gallagher (KEMA staff) presented.
- Alert Systems: Described a layered approach including federal (EAS, WEA, NOAA Weather Radio), state (outdoor sirens, message boards), and county (Everbridge mass notification, website, social media, door-to-door). The new Everbridge system was tested island-wide on June 23, 2026, reaching approximately 55,000 contacts out of an initial 77,000 (including duplicates). The system is opt-in, but also uses data mining (Resident Connect) to capture numbers.
- Shelter Criteria: Explained the state's shelter categories (Type B = Cat 1, Type A = Cat 2, EHP = Cat 3, EF COOP = Cat 4). Most facilities are not engineered to these standards. KEMA uses the term "Best Available Refuge Area (BARA)" for facilities that are refuges of last resort. BARA+ indicates a higher standard (e.g., some hardened facilities).
- Current Shelter Capacity: 6,000 persons. After pending retrofits (Kilauea Neighborhood Center, Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall, Kauai Community College), capacity is expected to reach ~16,000 (BARA and BARA+ combined).
- Facilities List: 19 BARA/BARA+ facilities listed by district, including Kilauea Elementary, Kapaa High, Kauai High (Cat 3), Kalihiwai Neighborhood Center (Cat 2), and others. Asterisks denote BARA+.
- Coalition of the Willing: A volunteer program to train county employees to staff shelters; they are paid when activated. Training is ongoing with multiple departments.
- Visitor Industry Coordination: KEMA held workshops with hotels on June 23-24, 2026. Discussed shelter-in-place at hotels vs. evacuation. Hotels can house guests if outside storm surge zones; KEMA will work with them on individual assessments.
- Private Facilities: Planning to develop MOUs under HRS 127A-20 (immunity from liability for private shelters). Philippine Cultural Center assessed as potential BARA, pending glass hardening.
- Funding: Shelter retrofits funded through a mix of state legislative appropriations, federal hazard mitigation grants, and county CIP. The state legislature has pending a 2.5x increase in Haima's shelter retrofit budget.
- Public Outreach: Emphasized personal responsibility: have a 14-day kit, a go-bag, and a family plan. Encourage sheltering in place at hardened homes or with friends/neighbors. Public can sign up for alerts at kauai.gov/kema.
- Council Questions: Covered hotel capacity, Everbridge opt-in process, timeline for KCC and Convention Hall retrofits (long-term), lack of shelters in Hanalei/Princeville, partnerships with Limahuli and resiliency hubs, and the need for better guidance on safe rooms. Councilmember Calderon requested more community education on hardening techniques.
Key Outcomes
- The committee voted unanimously to receive the KEMA briefing (motion passed).
- No formal directives were issued, but Chair Calderon and several members stressed the importance of individual preparedness, continued investment in shelter retrofits, and expanding the coalition of the willing.
- KEMA will continue to work with the visitor industry, develop private shelter MOUs, and pursue funding for additional retrofits.
- The statewide shelter dashboard is expected to be finalized by Haima.
- The meeting adjourned after the Finance and Economic Development Committee approved its minutes.
Meeting Transcript
Let us call to order the parks and recreation committee. Let the record reflect that all members are present. Can the clerk please read the first and only item? Minutes of the May 27, 2026, Parks and Recreation Transportation Committee meeting. Move to approve. Wonderful, is there any questions, discussion, public testimony? Seeing none all in favor? Having no further business and seeing no objections, the parks and recreation committee is adjourned. I'd like to call to order the public safety and human services committee. Can you please let the record reflect that all members are present? Clerk, can you please read the item? Minutes of the May 27, 2026, Public Safety and Human Services Committee meeting. All right. Is there any public testimony or need a motion? So is there any public testimony or discussion? Okay. If not, all those in favor? Yeah. So all those in favor? Aye. All right. Clerk, can you please read the next item? Item PSHS 2026-0 to communication from committee chair Cowden requesting the presence of the emergency management administrator to provide a briefing regarding public messaging for disasters such as floods, fires, tsunamis, tropical storms, and hurricanes, as well as an update on emergency refuge areas. Thank you. Can we please have HEMA come up? Yeah, move move to receive. Thank you for coming in this El Nino year. And so I know you've been out there in the public recently, but please, this is a good opportunity to help the public in general know what we're we're possibly facing and what how they can best be prepared to work with both KEMA and on their own for managing what might be happening. All right. Excuse me, uh staff officer with KEMA. Good morning, Sarah Lux, Staff Specialist with Chemo. Okay, so uh I had staff assist with preparing uh this briefing to address uh the items uh requested uh by committee chair uh Calden. Um go over these, uh several slides. I get into quite a bit of detail, and then while I normally am not the type that wants to give a wall of words, I wanted to make sure full information was provided along with reference, uh links and you know things later on because you have a copy of it. Uh you can keep it in your pocket uh if you have subsequent questions from the community or anything like that. So let's start off here. Thank you for your staff for putting it on the screen because my laptop did not power up upon coming here. So all right, so I like to start off always with our mission and vision statements. I won't read those to you, but I have them in there just for reference. Uh public messaging. So we like to tell all of our partners that uh disaster and threat awareness, so preparedness and resilience truly begins at the individual and household levels. And that extends uh to our communities, uh through all levels of government and our private sector community-based partners. It's everyone's responsibility or everyone's kuleana. Um that thread. And it is a shared responsibility. In this uh brief presentation, I will show you the various levels in which uh public information warning takes place. But it again goes down to the individuals and communities because it's everyone's responsibility to make sure you have access to information and multiple means of access. Um you guys have heard me over the years sometimes give you quotes and things like that. So I'd like to quote uh President John F. Kennedy, where he reminded us uh ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.
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