Before it happens
The same short list covers a hurricane, a flash flood, a wildfire and a tsunami. Do it once and it keeps.
Two weeks of water, not three daysHawaiʻi is the most isolated population on earth. Federal guidance assumes trucks arrive; here they arrive by ship. One gallon per person per day is the state standard.
Know your zone before you need itTsunami evacuation zone, flood zone, and whether your road is the kind that gets cut. Look it up on a calm day — the maps are slow to load when everyone opens them at once.
Sign up for county alertsThis page reads the weather service. Only your county can tell you about evacuations, shelter openings and road closures. Links are at the bottom.
A radio that runs without the gridCell towers hold on backup batteries for hours, not days. Battery or hand-crank, and write your island's frequencies on paper.
Photograph the house nowEvery room, the roofline, serial numbers. Five minutes today is worth a great deal to an insurance adjuster later.
Check your deductibleHurricane deductibles in Hawaiʻi are a percentage of dwelling coverage, not a flat sum, and flood is a separate policy most people do not have. Find out which you hold before a storm is named.
Off-island
For anyone watching from somewhere else: residents who happen to be away, owners of a second home, family and friends, or anyone simply following it. The most useful things you can do are not the obvious ones, and one common instinct actively gets in the way.
Reaching someone in Hawaiʻi
FirstText. Do not call.This is federal guidance, and it is not a courtesy — voice calls occupy far more network capacity than a text. When towers are congested or running on backup power, texts get through where calls fail, and every call you place competes with someone trying to reach 911. Send one message and wait.
Silence is not evidence of harmPower and cell service go down routinely here in a storm, often for days, and towers on backup batteries fail before the grid comes back. Someone perfectly safe may be unreachable for a long time. Assume the network before you assume the worst.
Do not call 911 from out of state for a welfare checkUnless you have specific reason to believe someone is in danger. Dispatchers during a storm are triaging life-threatening calls, and a wellness request from the mainland displaces one. Call the county emergency management line instead — the numbers are further down this page.
Try the people around them firstNeighbours, employer, building manager, church, the person who walks their dog. Someone physically nearby will know more, sooner, than any agency will tell you.
Red Cross reunificationFree and open to the public. Register an inquiry through Red Cross reunification services, or call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767). For a missing child, call 911 and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST.
Helping in a way that helps
Days afterMoney, not goodsEvery agency says the same thing and it is worth taking seriously. After the 2023 fires and again after the March 2026 Kona lows, Hawaiʻi officials specifically discouraged physical donations: unsorted goods arrive by ship, need storage, need volunteers to sort, and compete for the same trucks carrying water. Cash lets a local organisation buy exactly what is short, here, this week.
Give through a Hawaiʻi organisation where you canThe state maintains its own donation page during declared events, listing vetted channels. The Hawaiʻi Community Foundation runs a standing statewide disaster fund; Aloha United Way runs a community relief fund; the island food banks buy and distribute directly. All are listed below.
Do not self-deployArriving unannounced to help is a genuine burden during a response — untrained volunteers need feeding, housing and supervision that the response cannot spare. If you want to volunteer, register with an organisation and wait to be called.
Wait before booking a flightAirports, roads and hotels are part of the response. Even when flights resume, arriving early takes a seat and a room from someone who needs it. Check with whoever you are coming for.
If you own property here
Before and afterYour deductible may already have triggeredHawaiʻi hurricane deductibles are a percentage of dwelling coverage, not a flat sum, and they typically activate automatically once a hurricane watch or warning is issued for a named storm. Find out which you hold now rather than after.
Flood is a separate policyHomeowners and hurricane cover wind. Rising water is NFIP, which most owners do not carry. Know which one you would be claiming under.
Ask someone local to photograph itBefore any cleanup happens. A neighbour with a phone is worth a great deal to an adjuster later, and the window for before-images closes fast.
Do not hire a contractor who contacts you firstStorm chasers work the absent-owner market specifically. Check any licence through the DCCA business and licence check, and never let a contractor file your claim for you.
Reading the coverage
ThroughoutThe cone is not the damageNational coverage tends to show the forecast cone, which describes where the storm's centre may travel — not where the impacts reach. Impacts routinely extend hundreds of miles beyond it. Someone well outside the cone can still be flooded.
Category is about wind onlyIt says nothing about rainfall, and in Hawaiʻi flash flooding kills more people than wind does. A "weak" storm can be the dangerous one.
Advisories every six hoursThe Central Pacific Hurricane Center reissues at 5 a.m., 11 a.m., 5 p.m. and 11 p.m. Hawaiʻi time. Between advisories, nothing official has changed.
Where to give, who to call
State donation page
Hawaiʻi Emergency Management
Island food banks
Buy and distribute locally
County emergency management
For welfare concerns — not 911
- Hawaiʻi County · (808) 935-0031
- Maui County · (808) 270-7285
- Honolulu · (808) 723-8960
- Kauaʻi County · (808) 241-1800
What the words mean
These decide whether you act today or keep watching.
- WatchPossible
- Conditions are possible, usually within 48 hours. This is your window to act — the shops still have water and the roads are still open.
- WarningExpected
- Conditions are expected, usually within 36 hours. Preparation should already be done.
- AdvisoryLess severe
- Conditions are expected but below warning level. Inconvenient and occasionally dangerous — not life-threatening on its own.
- Flash floodThe local killer
- The hazard that causes the most deaths in Hawaiʻi storms, and it strikes far from any storm centre. Streams rise in minutes. Never drive through moving water.
- Terrain effectWhy forecasts read low
- Wind atop ridges and on windward slopes runs up to 30% stronger than the forecast figure, sometimes more. If you live above the valley floor, add to every number you see.
- Brown waterAfter the rain
- Runoff carries cesspool overflow and leptospirosis into the ocean and streams. Health guidance is to stay out for 48–72 hours after rain stops — clearing water is misleading, because dirt settles faster than bacteria.
Official channels
This page is not one of them. If anything here disagrees with the sources below, believe them.