Voyager Archie Kalepa Steers Lahaina Donations With An Eye On Weather
The emergency supplies are rolling in, but storm fronts could potentially follow.
In a Hawaiian homelands neighborhood in northern Lahaina on Sunday, residents patched roofs that the wind had ripped open and shepherded in truckloads of donations.
People sat in their front yards, surrounded by stacks of water bottles and foodstuffs. After days of collecting donations since the Lahaina fire, the residents were also preparing to safeguard the supplies for the coming weeks.
“We just got to start thinking long term,” the waterman Archie Kalepa said, presiding over the tight-run operation in a cul-de-sac. He wore a knife on his hip and a radio as he directed dozens of people both receiving goods and shipping others to neighborhood supply hubs.
A member of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Kalepa is drawing on his network of voyagers to help coordinate the effort.
One of his first actions was to pull Starlink satellite receivers from the society’s canoes to bring internet to the area. The society’s medical officer, Seren Tokumura, also showed up from Oahu to treat people in need.
鈥淚 believe we鈥檙e one of the first to have comms up and running out here,” said Na’alehu Anthony, who has been a crew member with the Polynesian Voyaging Society since 1995. “I just realized this is like a voyage and he needed crew so I stayed.鈥
Kalepa and his crew are simultaneously keeping watch for potentially destructive weather fronts.
Watching Weather Fronts
Wednesday morning, Hurricane Fernanda was following and another tropical depression appeared likely to form just south of Mexico, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“Fernanda’s the one to watch out for,” said John Bravender, a warning coordination meteorologist with NOAA’s National Weather Service in Honolulu.
Fernanda, though expected to weaken, will still leave tropical moisture behind, preparing the atmosphere for heavy rains, Bravender said. While it’s too early to be sure, freshly burned land, combined with the rain, could produce heavy runoff and mudslides, he said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is in frequent contact with the NWS, but “nothing’s been reported as of today” as a point of concern, FEMA spokesperson Robert Barker said Tuesday.
Nevertheless, on Sunday, Kalepa was already bringing in heavier tents to replace the lighter ones, and three empty 40-foot shipping containers to protect the community’s cache of resources from any inclement weather.
Toys and clothes were no longer needed.
“We need tarps. We have 102 homes that need to get covered,” Kalepa said. “You cannot wait for the government to take action.”
Kalepa thought they were now in a stable enough position to also start helping others. He said they would host a dinner at 5 p.m. with live bands “just to help with the spirits.”
The light poles come on at night when their neighborhood watch group patrols the streets.
The ash coating the pavement was also taken care of. A team of men attached a fire hose to a hydrant, wrenched it loose, and began spraying the cul-de-sac.
“We’ve got to get a hand on cleaning this stuff up. You can feel it in your lungs,鈥 Kalepa said.
Another eight more trucks and two semis were six minutes out.
A man arrived offering 1,500 gallons of gasoline that he’d just hauled in on a truck. Kalepa directed him to some people who needed it to power generators.
“This hub is flowing smoothly,” Kalepa said, readying a convoy of trucks to head mauka. “We need to get the other hubs up and running.鈥
Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.
