Three storms in the Eastern Pacific, between here and Mexico, are still at least a thousand miles from Hawai'i and may never make landfall, but that didn't stop some residents yesterday from stocking up on supplies and getting their hurricane kits together.

"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina hitting my homeland and threatening the lives of my family members, yes, I'm starting to prepare," said Nancy Wilimek, a nurse who moved from Louisiana to Honolulu four years ago.

Wilimek was busily loading cases of water, canned tuna and cleaning supplies into her car yesterday afternoon in the Costco parking lot in Iwilei.

At the same time, two hurricanes and a tropical storm were lined up in the Eastern Pacific, swirling slowly westward toward Hawai'i. National Weather Service forecasters say it's too early to tell whether any of them will make landfall or whether they would sustain wind speed.

Hurricane Jova, which geared up to a Category 2 storm yesterday morning with maximum sustained winds of 104 mph and gusts of 127 mph, brought up the lead and was expected to cross into the Central Pacific overnight.

Moving in the general direction of the Big Island at 7 mph with 1,100 miles yet to cover, the storm isn't likely to arrive in the neighborhood until late in the week.

"Thursday or Friday," Norman Hui, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in Honolulu, said yesterday. "But that is subject to change. In five days, a lot of things can change."

Hurricane Kenneth, a stronger Category 2 with maximum sustained winds of 127 mph gusting to 150 mph, was tracking along behind Jova about 1,800 miles out.

Following Kenneth was Tropical Storm Lidia, about 2,600 miles out and moving at 5 mph. A milder disturbance with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and gusts up to 52 mph, Lidia barely qualified as a tropical storm, Hui said.

The storms made impressive patterns on TV weather maps, and Costco shopper Wilimek said she didn't want her family members on the Gulf Coast, who survived Katrina despite tense moments, to worry about her.

She plans to tell them she is prepared, she said yesterday as she took stock of the purchases in her car trunk.

"I've got a mop because I have an open lanai," she said. "I have enough water to drink and to brush my teeth. I have this albacore tuna, which has lots of nutrients and not a lot of calories."

"And I'll probably be back tomorrow."

At about 4:45 yesterday, the last case of bottled water went off the shelf and into a shopper's cart at Costco. With a small crowd of expectant customers looking on, a harried store worker said more was on its way.

Betsy Denzer of Kamehameha Heights did her hurricane shopping yesterday at Safeway in Nu'uanu.

"Soda, water, rice," she said. "And oil, for some reason."

She and her husband, three children and the exchange student who lives with them recently reviewed evacuation plans, she said, and they have an evacuation kit with a flashlight, batteries and a radio.

Denzer said her husband had talked about adding a gun to the kit as a defense against looters, but she didn't think that would be necessary.

"Better to share," she said.

Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.