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Katrina reminds
us of Iniki, et al.

As I was taking my sunrise walk along Lilipuna Road this morning, I noticed the moon was just a white sliver above Kaneohe Bay -- God's eyelash seemingly held aloft by fiery pink clouds, themselves pushed upward by the dazzling orange orb rising from the sea: the sun refusing to be denied another day.

Overwrought adjectives and run-on sentences aside, it was quite a beautiful sight. If a couple of tourists had been walking along with me and those tourists had been wearing socks, the stunning sunrise would have knocked them off -- their socks, that is. Having seen roughly three or four hundred such sunrises since moving to the Windward side, my "wow!' factor is kind of high but, still, this was a good one.

But I couldn't enjoy it because of the images I had just seen on CNN of devastation done to New Orleans and other southern Gulf areas by Hurricane Katrina. While God was winking at Hawaii, Katrina was kicking the living magnolias out of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

It's hard for Hawaii residents not to feel the pain inflicted by Katrina, considering our own ongoing abusive relationship with hurricanes. It was not that long ago that Hurricane Iniki kicked the living papayas out of Kauai, along with the rest of its agricultural and economic base.

While in New Orleans a few years ago, I wrote about how it was a lot like Honolulu: tourists, balmy weather, tourists, sugar cane, tourists ... Well, other than the tourists, it's not a lot like Honolulu. I had left out the fact that both places are hurricane bait.

The main difference is that while Hawaii's land mass begins at sea level, most of us live above sea level. New Orleans was built below sea level, protected, or until this week thought to be, by levees. So while hurricanes in Hawaii usually mean wind and wave damage, in New Orleans it means the whole place ends up under water.

The appropriately named Katrina ("Katrina" is Greek for "pure") has brought pure destruction to Gulf states. When you think of how long it took Kauai to recover financially, physically and spiritually from Hurricane Iniki in 1992, you can't help but cringe at the coming misery Katrina has wrought.

The saddest thing for me to watch in the aftermath of Katrina was the looting that began to take place. I hate to be judgmental, and I'm not sitting there in 100-degree heat without water, ice, home or electricity, but such hard times give people a chance to behave either badly or heroically. I remember nothing but heroic behavior in the wake of Iniki. As a reporter, I stayed with a family on the devastated west side of Kauai in a tent they had erected because their house had been pushed off its foundation by waves. Despite losing everything, they invited me in as their guest.

Most people in New Orleans aren't behaving badly; they are risking their lives saving stranded people. But the images of smiling looters carrying off booty from a local Wal-Mart is disheartening.

Finally, Katrina should remind us here not to be complacent. Since 1950 Hawaii has been hit by five big hurricanes: Nina ('57), Dot ('59), Iwa ('82), Estelle ('86) and Iniki ('92).

The difference between a stunning sunrise and 150 mph winds is just a cosmic eyelash apart.