Despite glowing reviews about Hawai'i's ability to prepare for hurricanes and other disasters, serious gaps plague the system, raising questions about how well the state can weather a direct hit from a major storm.

The gaps will cost tens of millions of dollars to fix and could have life-or-death consequences in a disaster.

Half of O'ahu's 24 vital communications towers badly need repairs, making them more vulnerable in a catastrophic storm.

A critical shortage of emergency shelters exists in each county, raising the prospect that some people might be turned away if facilities were packed to capacity.

The state's aging siren warning system has coverage gaps, and roughly 10 percent of the sirens typically don't work when the system is tested each month.

If a major hurricane hits O'ahu, where 70 percent of the state's population lives, thousands likely would be left homeless, and officials aren't sure whether enough temporary housing would be available while homes are rebuilt. The shortfall could affect thousands of people.

Those are among the vulnerabilities in Hawai'i's emergency preparedness system, and officials view the shortcomings with greater urgency since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Failures by local, state and federal governments to adequately respond to the Gulf disaster have been widely criticized, offering lessons for others in disaster-vulnerable areas like Hawai'i.

The drama thousands of miles away has prompted many here to ask one question: Could a Katrina-like storm cause similar breakdowns in Hawai'i?

The answer, unfortunately, is yes, some say, especially if the destruction is widespread.

"I think it's a given," said state Sen. Gary Hooser, D-7th (Kaua'i, Ni'ihau), who lost his family home when Hurricane Iniki slammed into Kaua'i 13 years ago. "There's no doubt there would be (similar) gaps after a storm of that magnitude."

PREPAREDNESS LEVELS

But Civil Defense officials and others say the agencies involved in dealing with disasters have worked on so many exercises and actual emergencies that they have a good foundation for dealing with a major storm.

"We are very well coordinated as a team," said Jim Weyman, director of the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.

State legislators last week were briefed on Hawai'i's preparedness levels, including some of the problem areas, and Mayor Mufi Hannemann, in a news conference just a few days earlier, described problems that he said were the result largely of years of neglect of the county system — before he took office.

Some problems will take years to fix. Some have been raised previously at the Legislature but failed to bring action, mostly because of tight budgets.

With Katrina still generating headlines, however, legislators said Hawai'i's disaster preparedness will be a priority next session.

Civil Defense officials and others say Hawai'i continues to vigorously prepare for disasters of all kinds, emphasizing that it's an ongoing process. Hurricanes present the chief threat, followed by flash floods, tsunamis and earthquakes.

In any given year, the odds of a hurricane hitting Hawai'i are 1 in 15, according to state Civil Defense data. For a category 3 or 4 storm, which means sustained winds ranging from 110 mph to 155 mph, the odds fall to 1 in 75. For a category 5, the most powerful type with winds topping 155 mph, the odds weren't calculated. Meteorologists say the probability of a category 5 hitting Hawai'i would be very slim.

Katrina, by the time it hit land, was a category 4 storm, with sustained winds reaching 150 mph. It brought a deadly storm surge, which caused much of the coastal destruction.

It's difficult to gauge how prepared Hawai'i is to deal with a major natural disaster because the state hasn't had one since Iniki crippled Kaua'i in 1992. Iniki was a category 4 storm until just hours before making landfall, becoming a category 3 with sustained winds of 130 mph.

Despite the many years since Iniki, the basic system that would be activated in the event of an approaching disaster has been well tested. Overseen by the state Civil Defense in close coordination with its county counterparts, the system regularly is used to deal with smaller emergencies, such as the Manoa floods of last October. Agencies involved in such operations also regularly conduct joint exercises to simulate major disasters, testing how effectively the groups work together. Such coordination is critical during an emergency.

In the real-life cases and the exercises, officials say, Hawai'i's system worked well, and the state and counties have received high marks from various sources for aspects of their preparedness levels. The state, for instance, was the first in the country to have all its counties designated StormReady by the National Weather Service, reflecting in part their ability to inform the public about weather hazards.

The plaudits, however, don't reflect the serious gaps that remain in the overall system.

And it's the gaps that worry some, especially if a major hurricane hits O'ahu. On any given day, the island population totals roughly 1 million residents and tourists.

"I think there would be mass chaos in just trying to sort out where people would go," said Mililani resident John Toillion, who until last year spent more than a decade doing emergency planning for the Army here.

Civil Defense, tourism officials and others believe the evacuation plans and other drills they've practiced repeatedly would help get people to where they should be in the face of an impending disaster.

SHELTER SHORTAGE

But a lack of emergency shelter space could present a problem if a major storm hits Hawai'i.

O'ahu has a shortage of about 60,000 spaces, and statewide the shortfall is 124,000.

Although many people prefer riding out storms in their homes, a Katrina-type hurricane heading straight for O'ahu or the other islands could drive thousands to shelters. O'ahu has nearly 258,000 spaces; the statewide total is nearly 339,000.

If the facilities reach their capacity, authorities would have to consider whether the risks of accepting more people would outweigh the risks of sending them elsewhere — if other places even are available. No specific plan has been developed to deal with the possibility of excess demand, according to the American Red Cross, which staffs the shelters with trained volunteers.

"We're going to accommodate people as best we can with the shelters we have," said Maria Lutz, Hawai'i's director of disaster services for the Red Cross.

Another potential problem: the shelters aren't equipped to house those with special needs, such as the sick and disabled. Few shelters have their own power generators.

"The Achilles heel for us is having adequate shelters for our people," said Ed Teixeira, vice director of state Civil Defense.

The agency says it would cost $35 million to upgrade the shelters.

A catastrophic storm also would create problems in dealing with thousands of people expected to lose their homes.

In one planning scenario in which an Iniki-type hurricane hits O'ahu, destroying or damaging tens of thousands of homes, the number left homeless would be 145,000.

Using tents, hotel rooms, rental properties, homes of friends and relatives and other facilities, civil defense officials project that temporary housing could be found for the majority of those who don't leave the island.

But even after exhausting those options, that would still leave some 45,000 people in need of shelter, creating a daunting task of finding suitable sites where they could live possibly for months.

"We'll have to find places for those people doing the best we can," Teixeira said. He mentioned local parks as one option.

COMMUNICATION VITAL

In responding to any disaster, communication also is a vital component. In New Orleans, initial response efforts were hampered because police, fire and other rescue personnel had difficulty talking to each other, with their networks foiled by lack of power and flooding or because they were on different systems.

If power and the main communication towers go down here, the state and county agencies have backup systems, including satellite phones and ham radio networks run by licensed volunteers.

Gordon Bruce, director of the city Department of Information Technology, said an Iniki-type storm hitting O'ahu would knock out a significant portion of its communications infrastructure, partly because of the lack of maintenance done on the system. "It's over 10 years of neglect," he said.

The backup systems are powered by generators or with batteries, so if the electricity remained out for a long period, the concern would be running out of fuel and draining the batteries, which happened in New Orleans, Bruce said. If roads were impassable, getting fuel to generators could be a problem.

When Civil Defense officials plot the recovery phase of a disaster, the counties plan as if no outside help would arrive for up to two days, and the state likewise plans to rely entirely on resources within Hawai'i for two to four days.

Among the resources available here: thousands of tents, tarps, meal packages, bottled water and other supplies in a Federal Emergency Management Agency warehouse.

FEMA has been criticized for its response to Katrina. The agency did not respond to repeated requests from The Advertiser to discuss its role in dealing with Hawai'i disasters.

LINES OF AUTHORITY

One of the criticisms directed at FEMA, state and local officials in Louisiana was that no one took charge to get relief quickly to people dying as they waited for help.

Teixeira, the state Civil Defense executive, said 99 percent of the local, state and federal agencies involved in response efforts here understand how the system works, so lines of authority are clear.

He acknowledged that the potential exists for bureaucratic wrangling, as happened after Iniki. "I've got no assurances it won't happen again," he said. "But I think this is the best you can get, given that it's multi-jurisdictional."

Retired state Civil Defense vice director Roy Price, who held that post during Iniki, said chaos after a major disaster is unavoidable to some degree. "Everybody will be looking for a smooth (response). I'm telling you to forget it. There's always going to be some chaos. It's the one who can hold together those wild horses to cross the finish line, that's who will be successful."

If Hawai'i suffers a direct hit from a major hurricane, the devastation is expected to be so widespread that help will come not just from the federal government but from other states.

Yet Hawai'i is the only state in the country that is not part of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which has a one-stop system for a state to seek emergency aid from other members during a time of disaster.

"If you're not using EMAC, you're pretty much on your own to make phone calls, to find resources from other states, and it creates a lot more chaos," said Angela Copple, coordinator of the program for the National Emergency Management Association.

The cost to join the compact? Nothing, Copple said.

A state that gets help has to agree to reimburse the states that provide the aid, but that would be the case even if the state wasn't a member and sought assistance on its own, she added.

Officials from state Civil Defense are asking legislators to pass the needed legislation next session to allow Hawai'i to join the compact.

As the push continues to shore up Hawai'i's disaster readiness, Civil Defense officials and others stress that the best way to prepare for "the big one" is for people to ready their own households, gathering the appropriate emergency supplies and making other arrangements so their families can weather the storm.

Said Dr. Chiyome Fukino, head of the state Department of Health, "Government can only do so much."

Reach Rob Perez at rperez@honoluluadvertiser.com.