HILO, Hawai'i — Few dispute that the Big Island Civil Defense system is the best in the state, earning its stripes the hard way by weathering devastating tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, floods and earthquakes over the decades. Still, there are potential vulnerabilities that worry emergency planners.

"Every single emergency, we learn a little bit more of what we can do to make it better," said Hawai'i County Mayor Harry Kim. "I've told people, 'Show me someplace that's better, and I'm going to go over there and steal their ideas.' "

Kim, who headed the county Civil Defense Agency for more than 24 years, says the failure of government agencies to coordinate their response to Hurricane Katrina when it struck the Gulf Coast would not happen on the Big Island.

He contends that the Hawai'i County civil defense network of police, fire and other government agencies "is the best in the United States, bar none."

A key strength of the system lies in the relationships that have developed over the years as the system was activated over and over to respond to emergencies, Kim said. "You cannot expect a system to work if you execute it only once every 10 years," he said.

"For the most part, most of the people on this island do not demand too much of government, but when an emergency happens, they expect government to respond," Kim said.

Kim said he believes that staff people from every hotel and resort have been through civil defense training, which will improve the response in an emergency, and the county has taken critical steps such as tightening its building code in an attempt to reduce earthquake damage.

He also noted a county requirement that every proposed new resort seeking a rezoning from the county must submit an emergency response plan to Civil Defense.

However, like the rest of the state, the Big Island has a shortage of shelter space, and acting Civil Defense administrator Lanny Nakano said he believes that the county building code should be amended to require all new homes to include shelters for the occupants. He estimates that such a measure might add $10,000 to the cost of a new home.

Shelters are in particularly short supply in fast-growing areas such as North Kona and Puna, and residents should understand the risks, he said.

TAKING PRECAUTIONS

Civil Defense officials urge residents to keep a week's supply of food and water on hand for emergencies, to have a family plan ready, and to have evacuation kits ready to go, but no one knows what fraction of the population actually takes those precautions.

With Hurricane Jova lurking in the Pacific, Hilo High School teacher Kathy Dorn said her son was attaching hurricane clips yesterday to the roof of a garden shed at her Hawaiian Acres home in Puna. Dorn said she would take shelter from a hurricane in the laundry room below her home and would rely on homegrown produce and water from her home catchment tank.

Apart from the extra hurricane ties, Dorn said she didn't take special precautions. That's partly because she has most of what she needs on hand already and partly because she expected Hurricane Jova to miss the island.

"I let that one go because I just thought it would not happen," she said. "I think I've gotten complacent because largely, hurricanes bypass the Big Island and swing around and smash O'ahu and Kaua'i. I think we're a little complacent here because we think that will happen always."

Nakano said he has asked audiences at public-speaking engagements whether they have actually completed their preparations and have a family plan, and at times, "only a couple of hands went up."

That is troubling considering that when Hurricane Iniki struck Kaua'i, it took relief workers more than a week to get help to some areas, Nakano said.

"You have to prepare yourself, because you're going to be on your own," Nakano said. "People cannot expect the next day government is going to be right there."

Another major issue is communications. County Police Chief Lawrence Mahuna said that while he believes the Big Island has the best civil defense system in the world, a 25,000-acre brushfire that threatened Waikoloa last month exposed the need for improvements in the radio network used by police, rescuers and other crews in an emergency.

DIFFERENT SYSTEMS

Mahuna said fire, police, military helicopter and bulldozer crews that worked to fight the fire and evacuate residents could not speak directly with each other during the fire because they used different communications systems.

They had to pass messages to each other through liaisons for each agency at the County Civil Defense emergency operations center, and that took time, he said.

Mahuna said his department is planning to set up what is known as a "blue channel" or "white channel" that crews from each agency can tap into to communicate directly with each other in the field during a disaster. That is critical, especially when authorities cope with a fast-moving crisis such as a runaway brushfire, he said.

"If you don't have that real- time communications, it may be too late. We may be evacuating the wrong people," Mahuna said. "A whole lot of things can go wrong if you don't have that real-time communications."

Mahuna said he hopes the "white channel" system can be worked into the police department's new digital microwave system, which is scheduled to debut later this year.

At the same time, Mahuna also said, his department is studying ways to make the new island-wide microwave communications system redundant so that communications could continue even if a number of towers are destroyed in a hurricane.

The towers are rated to withstand 125-mph winds, but high winds could damage a tower's equipment while leaving the tower itself standing. The system can readily withstand the loss of a single tower, but the loss of more towers would disrupt communications in some areas.

"Hopefully we can survive a Class 2 hurricane and still have our system running," Mahuna said. But a Class 4 hurricane would destroy the network, he said.

Mahuna plans to ask the County Council for money to install a backup system such as fiber-optic cable to make the new microwave system redundant. The cable would serve as a backup data link, bridging any gaps in the networks when towers are damaged.

"How much that's going to cost I have no idea, but we're at least looking at it," he said.

If the project is expensive, Mahuna said, it may have to be installed in phases, running cable first to the towers that are most likely to be damaged.

Warren Lee, president of Hawai'i Electric Light Co., said communication also is a potential problem for the power company.

If the telephone lines go down and cell phones don't work, "then communications is a real issue," Lee said. The utility would fall back on the Civil Defense communications system, but the utility does not have its own redundant system today that it could count on in a crisis, he said.

"We still haven't figured out what is the ultimate solution," he said. One possibility is mobile transmitting stations that could be hauled out to areas where communications have been cut off, he said.

In a major disaster such as a hurricane, Lee said, HELCO would call for backup from its sister companies Maui Electric and Hawaiian Electric to provide crews and equipment to repair damage.

IMPROVEMENTS CONTINUE

After witnessing the devastation caused by Hurricane Iniki in 1992, Lee said, HELCO hardened substations and switching stations, and made some systems redundant. Those improvements continue to be made today, and when the company installed new transmission lines linking its Keahole power plant with Kailua, it erected hardened steel poles along the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway.

"Based on Kaua'i's experience, we looked at our system, at the wind at hurricane speeds and what is practical to design for," he said. "Obviously, we cannot design everything for 155 mph winds."

For the county Department of Water Supply, one particularly ugly scenario is a hurricane that causes a prolonged power failure in Kona. Water service to the dry leeward area would last for perhaps five or six hours until the system's reservoirs were drained, said Milton Pavao, manager of the water department.

The department would bring in tankers to provide drinking water, but it does not have backup generators powerful enough to run the Kona pumps and get the system functioning again, Pavao said.

Some of the wells that serve Kona are 1,800 feet deep and would require 750-horsepower generators to efficiently draw up the water to the reservoirs. The department could use less-powerful generators to pump some water into the reservoirs, but it wouldn't be enough to meet the demand from the growing community.

More powerful generators would have to be brought to Kona from other parts of the state or from out of state, Pavao said. Under the department's emergency plans, priority would be given to restarting systems serving medical centers and elderly care and nursing homes.

"I think about stuff like that all the time. It can happen," he said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.