Waimea town meeting to focus on emergency preparedness after recent disasters

Waimea’s next emergency-preparedness meeting is built around a hard truth: in a town that sits at the center of Hawaii Island’s wildfire, tsunami, flood and storm risks, a few minutes can determine how well families get out, stay connected and recover. The Waimea Community Association will gather residents on Thursday, May 7, from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Kahilu Town Hall for a discussion titled Emergency Preparedness: Lessons Learned and Preparing for the Future.

The agenda reflects lessons from a series of recent crises that have pushed preparedness higher on the island’s agenda. On July 29, 2025, Hawaii County opened evacuation shelters at Waimea Community Center and Hisaoka Gym during a tsunami warning triggered by an estimated magnitude 8.7 earthquake off Kamchatka, Russia. County evacuation orders covered all tsunami inundation zones before they were later canceled after the warning was downgraded to an advisory.

Those concerns deepened again in March 2026, when the county said a Kona low brought significant rainfall, flooding and damage across Hawaii County. For Waimea, where road access, communications and essential services can be harder to restore than in more urban parts of the island, the stakes are not abstract. The town meeting is expected to focus on what worked, what failed and what needs to be fixed before the next hurricane, wildfire or power disruption.

The first panel will bring together representatives from the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency, the County of Hawaii Fire Department, the County of Hawaii Police Department, the County of Hawaii Department of Water Supply, the County of Hawaii Department of Public Works, the Waimea Community Emergency Response Team, Pōhakuloa Training Area and county council leadership. A second panel will turn to resilience and infrastructure, with speakers from Vibrant Hawaii, the Waimea Resilience Hub, local churches and schools, and utility and public works partners.

The meeting comes against a stark backdrop. The 2021 Waimea/Mana Road wildfire burned about 40,000 acres and was described as the largest wildfire in Hawaii Island history. The 2023 Maui wildfires killed 102 people and became the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century. County officials have also continued to promote free CERT training in 2025 and 2026, covering triage and first aid, search and rescue, and fire suppression and safety, while the county’s Multi-Hazard Mitigation Plan is updated every five years.

Waimea Community Association has used town meetings and fairs before to push wildfire preparedness, disaster readiness and resilience. This one is meant to turn those lessons into household action, before the next emergency tests the town again.