Dodging Hurricane Hector

So Hector came and went. He barely missed the islands coming within 200 miles of the big island of Hawaii. He was a category 4 hurricane at times spinning across the Pacific Ocean with winds of up to 155 mph.

We all watched the satellite feeds daily as Hector tracked on an eastward path toward the Hawaiian islands. We knew it would be close, especially for the people on the Big Island who were already dealing with the continual eruptions of the Kilauea volcano displacing many from their homes. If Hector was going to inflict damage it would be on the southern most island of Hawaii.

"Are you prepared?" The question came from television newscasters and front pages of all the newspapers across the islands.

Prepared means you have 14 days worth of nonperishable food and two gallons of water per person. Expect island-wide power outages. Have a safe place to go. A flashlight. Stories still circulate here on Kauai about Hurricane Iniki in 1992 that literally tore up the landscape and coastal areas of parts of the island.

One condo resident talks about how her window curtains were sucked outside the windows by the hurling high winds.

"It looked like it was going to miss us," says one old-timer, "then it turned south at the last minute and hit Kauai."

"Many people evacuated the island," says another. "The only store open immediately afterwards was a hamburger stand."

These islanders remained and are here to this day. And doubtless so are many others. It's one of the hazards of living out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on the farthest archipelago from any continent in the world. It's more grist to share when you talk story about it later.

Study a map of the mighty Pacific and the Hawaiian islands appear as a row of tiny dots on a huge mass of water. You wouldn't see them if they weren't labeled.

As Hector approached we checked our inventory of nonperishable food, which consisted of a few cans of tuna and beans. I picked up six gallons of water on one errand-run across the island. If I pick up something every day our stock will accumulate.

Because of the excellent weather news forecasts and satellite technology, we pretty much figured it was not going to reach the islands unless... and with Mother Nature there's always that "unless," something strange happens, as it did in '92.

The day of Hector's potential arrival the sky over Kauai was clear and blue, more so than in weeks. It was a beautiful day. It reminded me of the day following the 7.9 Loma Prieta earthquake on October 11, 1989 that destroyed downtown Santa Cruz and parts of the greater San Franciso Bay Area. That following day the weather was gorgeous, albeit there was a ton of open cracks in the Earth, collapsed buildings, piles of rubble and people displaced from their homes.

You could say we dodged a bullet. You could also say that everyday that we survive we dodge a bullet. Life really is that resilient and that fragile. The horrifying fires back in California no doubt caused more damage this time, with less warning.

We were lucky out here in the middle of the Pacific. This time. It's hurricane season and there are currently two new storms building in the low western Pacific.