LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Residents of Kaua'i will probably do better than many other places in the next weather emergency, simply because they've been through it before, said Mayor Bryan Baptiste.

"I believe if any of the islands are prepared, we are. The people of Kaua'i have always been able to improvise when they had to. I think that's the strength of Kaua'i and why she's so resilient," Baptiste said.

But Kaua'i residents will also do better after a disaster because they're part of the unique community that is the state of Hawai'i, said county Civil Defense administrator Mark Marshall. It's the same kind of support that any community in the state can count on from the others.

"No. 1 is our sense of 'ohana here in the state," he said. It means that Hawai'i agencies and companies respond without a great deal of concern about before-the-fact paperwork and bureaucratic process.

"We had linemen — electric and telephone — arriving right away from other islands, from entirely different companies," he said. "I don't have MOAs (memoranda of agreement) with O'ahu. They'll come. I know they'll come."

If a hurricane hit another island — notably O'ahu — as well as Kaua'i, it would simply mean it would take longer for help to reach the island, Marshall said.

"That's why we recommend people have three days of supplies," he said. It would take roughly that long for help to begin arriving from the sites Hawai'i sees as its early responders: the Mainland, Alaska and Guam.

Longtime Kaua'i residents are familiar with disasters. They remember tsunamis that devastated coastlines in the middle of the 20th century, along with Hurricanes Dot in 1959, Iwa in 1982 and Iniki in 1992.

What infrastructure remains from the recent hurricanes is perhaps the most storm-resistant, and what got destroyed has been replaced with newer, often sturdier gear.

Kaua'i Building Division chief Doug Haigh said that homes and other buildings that have been built or rebuilt since 1992 have been constructed to a standard that should withstand winds of up to 80 mph. The county is considering adopting a new international building code with a wind load standard of 110 mph, he said.

After much of the island's electrical distribution system was destroyed, Kaua'i Electric — now the Kaua'i Island Utility Cooperative — replaced the high-voltage cross-island backbone of its system with a network of tall, steel, hurricane-resistant poles.

Joe McCawley, co-op regulatory affairs manager, said the organization's emergency procedures manual has been updated. It even includes such things as provisions for housing off-island electrical workers who would arrive to help rebuild a system after a storm.

Many of the county's water wells now have emergency generators in fortified structures, so water can be pumped even while the power grid is down.

During Hurricane Iniki, most water systems suffered multiple breaks, and many broken pipes simply became fountains until water tanks ran dry. Today, Marshall said, water officials have plans to shut off some tanks before a hurricane or tsunami arrives, to preserve some storage and to retain firefighting flow.

Homes and commercial buildings built or reconstructed after the hurricane were designed to more wind-resistant standards. A key feature in all new construction is sturdier foundations and the use of specialized steel strapping systems that distribute a wind load from the roof through the walls to the foundation. Most structures whose roofs lifted off, allowing walls to collapse during Hurricane Iniki, presumably would remain in one piece today.

Since the hurricane, many of the island's schools have been rebuilt to serve as emergency shelters in a storm.

Thirteen of the island's 16 certified shelters are public schools and another is Kaua'i Community College. They are rated to hold 19,433 individuals. Marshall said civil defense authorities would like enough shelters to house half the population, which means the island is about 10,000 spaces short.

Public buildings are not automatically built to serve as shelters, and there is no law saying they must be. When the Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School between Lihu'e and Puhi was built a few years ago, state civil defense authorities estimated it would cost 6 percent more to build it as an emergency shelter, but that would have required changes to the design, and education officials rejected the proposal.

Still, "a lot of our facilities have been upgraded," said Danny Hamada, head of the state Department of Education's Kaua'i complex.

He said every school has a safety plan, there are regular inspections and students participate in monthly drills.

Hamada said that school cafeteria ordering has been rescheduled to keep a larger stock of staples on hand.

"If something were to happen, we would have a good supply of food," he said.

Marshall said the recent experience of a disaster helps keep people and agencies interested in participating in educational sessions and exercises.

"We're much closer to our infrastructure than perhaps we were. We meet regularly," he said. "Our Energy Group includes the utilities and others — electricity, communications, water, etc. We meet quarterly and hold exercises. We have a lot of agencies talking to each other that weren't before. It wasn't Iniki that brought us close as much as 9/11."

"My goal is to have all our responders on a first-name basis" with each other, he said.

One key in disaster planning is the understanding that transportation systems will be disrupted.

"We will pre-position heavy equipment at all the seven fire stations, so it is available where it's needed" and so isolated areas have needed resources, Marshall said.

Baptiste said he recognizes that the island's road system is vulnerable in several locations, notably coastal areas where a tsunami could wipe out a critical bridge or highway. Key risk areas: Waimea Bridge, whose loss would isolate Waimea, Kekaha and the Pacific Missile Range Facility; Wailua Bridge, whose loss cuts off movement between Lihu'e and the eastern and northern parts of the island; and several coastal bridges in the Hanalei to Ha'ena area.

Marshall said that in a few cases there are alternative routes, like an upstream ford over the Wailua River. But in some situations, such as the loss of the Waimea Bridge, there is no alternative route. Travelers would have to await a ferry or the construction — perhaps by the military — of a temporary floating bridge.

State officials are discussing an upstream Wailua River bridge in connection with a Kapa'a bypass road, but no alternative routes are being actively discussed for other coastal roads.

One of the people issues that authorities must consider is the large population of visitors, whose numbers can reach a quarter or more of the resident population.

"Some of the most serious reports we got out of Hurricane Iniki involved not locals but malihinis (newcomers). A lot of them were out of their hotels, out of money, disconnected and unhappy they couldn't get out" of Kaua'i because flights weren't operating, Marshall said.

Hotels are asked to work on their own property-by-property evacuation plans. Some hotels have adequate shelter spaces away from potential storm surge areas. Many don't. Marshall said resorts are urged to send evacuated visitors to shelters in the Lihu'e area, so they are near the airport. That way, they can be flown out of the disaster zone with minimal further transport.

But some of the good news is that while there are obvious delays in getting assistance to an isolated island, Marshall said he fully expects help to come sooner rather than later — the first assistance arriving in as little as 12 hours if other islands are not affected by a disaster, and as little as 24 hours if it has to come from the Mainland.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.