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Katrina not welcome
in Hawaii

With the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina so graphically reported in the media, making predictions of a similar storm's direct hit on Oahu has now become the waterfront topic du jour.

These discussions have been reinforced by photos of the storm's destruction of marinas along the Gulf Coast, with many showing scores of boats tossed in collective heaps by the storm's surge and wind.

The question, can it happen here? is always answered by the older salts with, "Of course, just look what Iniki did -- and it pretty much missed Oahu."

What Iniki -- a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph -- did was devastate Kauai in 1992. And while its effects were a good deal less on Oahu, it still produced wind-and-storm-surge damage along Oahu's west- and south-facing shorelines.

Ask any veteran member of the Waikiki Yacht Club and they will be happy to show you a point about one foot up the clubhouse wall where the water rose to that day in early September.

Or ask the maintenance crews at the Hilton Hawaiian Village how long it took them to remove the tons of sand that washed into the beachfront swimming pools there.

One needn't have much of an imagination to picture what the Ala Wai Harbor and Waikiki might look like after substantially higher winds and a storm surge of 10 to 20 feet higher than Iniki's 4 or 5 feet.

The harbor would likely be decimated, with nearly all of the boats blown ashore around the Ilikai and Prince hotels, or pushed over and under the Ala Moana Bridge -- especially given the already fragile condition of our state-maintained marina.

As for Waikiki in general, with the Ala Wai Canal overflowing from the incoming storm surge, a simultaneous deluge from torrential rains would surely submerge the entire area. For a period of time, every buildings' first floor would be underwater.

Certainly, the water would drain off as the storm passed, unlike New Orleans, but still the damage would be immense, and with that damage would come injuries to anyone unprotected from flying debris.

High-rise hotels would likely withstand the onslaught, but their floor-to-ceiling windows would be an ever-present source of shrapnel to thousands of residents and visiting tourists.

As we saw in New Orleans, people may ignore advice to evacuate when they don't fully understand or appreciate the enormous threat of a hurricane and certainly, any language barrier will compound the problem.

Still, after having made all of these predictions, the collective waterfront wisdom got a bit vague as to how best to prepare for such a disastrous event.

Naturally, there are all of the suggested preparations listed in the phone book and in the state's hurricane manual for boaters. But, perhaps never letting your boat insurance lapse may be the most important plan of all.