‘This is just what we do:’ Pāhala residents help each other recover from Lala, prepare for Moke

When the wind tore off a section of her roof and picked up parts of her back patio like paper at her home in Pāhala last Saturday night, Clarissa Pua looked up at the ceiling for divine intervention.

“I was praying, asking God to keep us safe,” she said.

With Hurricane Lala bringing winds of 70 mph and dropping about 24 inches of rain on the southern tip of Hawai‘i Island, “I could hear the river one street away and the boulders that were being carried by the water,” Pua said. “It was shocking. But in that moment that felt like catastrophe, you can’t leave. You don’t want to leave your home.”

And when the storm passed, despite her own damage, Pua wanted to help her hometown. And so did lifelong Pāhala resident Deborah Funai Brown..

Funai Brown set up a recovery hub in the front yard of her home on Kamani Street, between Pikake and ʻŌhiʻa streets. And Pua spent Thursday there distributing donated supplies to their neighbors and documenting their needs.

Funai Brown said the community always has been “stuck in the middle of nowhere, so we already feel forgotten. This experience makes that feeling worse, but it also inspires the need to come together.”

Funai Brown has been offering her yard as a place for people to drop off and pick up donations of supplies, including gas, water, clothing, diapers, food and pet food. Those in need of supplies or those able to donate supplies can stop by anytime.

“It took time for us to reach out to our fellow community members to ensure we could find donations for what we needed to make this as efficient as possible,” Funai Brown said. “We’ve been able to coordinate with other small nonprofits, individuals and businesses, and collaborate to really serve our community.”

Funai Brown said she witnessed Highway 11 collapse in front of the Kaʻū Hospital, which caused the town to be cut off from the rest of the island for about two days.

The collapse occurred after floodwaters from the Paʻauʻau Stream breached a rock wall and surged onto the highway, causing it to buckle. Since Sunday, crews have been working every day to clear the roads of debris, opening access to and from Pāhala, and reconstructing the roads destroyed by Lala.

“We don’t have power and we don’t know when we will get power,” Funai Brown said. “We’re under a prolonged water boil advisory and we are isolated from the more populated cities that could be of more help to us. We needed to create a hub to make it easier for everyone to get what they need, especially before the next storm.”

According to Pāhala resident Aʻahuikekapalani Kahiwalani, creating a hub run by the community was necessary due to the county and state’s disaster response, which is facilitated at the Pāhala Community Center.

“There is a problem with the way the county, state, and the contracted agencies are facilitating the emergency response,” Kahiwalani said. “They aren’t serving the community in a way that responds to all our people. It’s a waste of time and gas. I asked them if we could extend the hours with community volunteers at the community center and they said no.”

Cindy, who declined to give her last name, is a resident of the Pāhala Senior Center and decided to walk down the hill to the Pāhala Community Center to see if there were any supplies available. The nonprofit Vibrant Hawaiʻi was giving out hot meals of chicken ʻulu curry and water to residents at the time.

“I wanted to walk here because I don’t know what’s going on,” Cindy said. “No one has told us about anything and my friends with cars are busy right now. I also was hoping they might have a place where I can charge my phone.”

Funai Brown said she and her neighbors have been checking in on the Pāhala Senior Center every day because they were not taken care of in the beginning of the recovery effort.

“Our senior center needs lights, food and water. They need hot meals,” Funai Brown said. “We as a community are checking in on them, but they do really need lights. We don’t want our kūpuna to not be able to see and fall.”

Cindy was able to find a ride and ended up at the community hub in front of Funai Brown’s house, where she picked up a gallon of water, some nonperishable food items, and cleaning supplies.

“The county, state and the contracted agencies have a very controlled response, which many of us do not appreciate,” Kahiwalani said. “We want to donate directly, kanaka to kanaka. We needed a space, and then I ran into (Deborah) who had the space. I guarantee we will see a difference for everyone.”

According to County Council Member and Vibrant Hawaiʻi organizer Ashley Kierkiewicz, the disaster response following Hurricane Lala is wildly more complicated than the 2018 Kīlauea eruption and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This response is taking massive islandwide coordination and we’re dealing with resource scarcity, bad cell service and power that is still out in multiple communities,” Kierkiewicz said. “This has been insanity.”

Due to the vast needs from across the community, Vibrant Hawaiʻi, the County of Hawaiʻi and other agencies have had a difficult time making sure that every hub has every need addressed in a timely manner and with enough manpower.

Vibrant Hawaiʻi asked community member Ben Kawakami to facilitate the support in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Lala and its point of distribution in Pāhala. After a few days, leadership over the point of distribution was then transferred to Pastor Troy from the Rivers of Life Church.

“We cannot ask a disaster survivor to lead recovery for the community when they are having to navigate their own grief,” Kierkiewicz said. “It is a lot of kuleana (responsibility) to place on the shoulders of someone navigating their own grief. We want to get a rotating group of volunteers to staff the Pāhala hub, so recovery response isn’t just on one person or group.”

Kierkiewicz suggests that anyone interested in leading a hub should reach out to volunteer with Vibrant Hawaiʻi at contact@vibranthawaii.org.

“If the community is wanting to volunteer for their neighbors, we can make that happen,” Kierkiewicz said.

During this time of recovery, Pāhala is also preparing for a second storm as it nears Hawaiʻi Island. After the incoming storm, Kahiwalani will work on starting an imu (an underground pit oven), which could provide food for 200 families without the need for propane or gas.

“We have plenty of hunters in Pāhala,” Kahiwalani said. “There is currently access to the beach for fish. We can work on taking care of our people. An imu heals and roots you to the land. It brings the community together within our culture, which is needed now more than ever.”

With help from a partnership with the Hawaiʻi Animal Kuleana Alliance, Funai Brown was able to send a team out with dozens of gas cans and give out gas to those in need. Some residents dropped off their can with their name on it and will come back today to pick up the fully gassed can.

“It’s good to see all this taking place,” Pua said. “All of Kaʻū is tight-knit and we’re always ready to help each other. Before my husband died a year ago, it would be both of us out here helping. This is what we do.”

Despite needing help to repair her roof, Pua spent all day helping to load cars and document needs from her fellow neighbors.

“I look at my fellow sisters and brothers and the more severe things they went through,” Pua said. “Possessions can be replaced, but lives cannot. It is going to take a long time for all of us to heal, but we will get through it. Kaʻū always gets through it.”