Lessons from Diamond Head Mountain

I began the morning heading into the heart of Diamond Head in Honolulu to join Rev. Edwin Gonzalez-Castillo, Director of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, and Elder John Toillion, Elder at Mililani Presbyterian Church in a meeting with several representatives of the Hawaii VOAD. The Hawaii VOAD is located at the American Red Cross building at the iconic Diamond Head in Honolulu.

Emergency Management headquarters for the state of Hawaii is inside Diamond Head Mountain. 

What Is a VOAD?

Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters. There is a National VOAD and state VOADS, like the Hawaii VOAD. VOADs are coalitions of faith-based, government and non-profit organizations that come together to collaborate and coordinate to make disaster work more effective and to avoid duplicating efforts. Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is one of the 70+ members of the national VOAD, and since the Maui fires PDA is also a member of the Hawaii state VOAD. Elder John Toillion is our PDA representative to the Hawaii VOAD.

Elder John Toillion is the PDA representative for the Hawaii VOAD and an elder at Mililani Presbyterian Church on Oahu, in Pacific Presbytery. 

Maui One Year After the Fires

VOADS are coalitions of agencies coming together. For our VOAD meeting, those present were: The Red Cross, Salvation Army, Hawaii Baptist Disaster Relief, the United Church of Christ, Americorp, and the Chair and Vice Chair of the Hawaii State VOAD. The update on Maui, a little over a year after the August 8, 2023 fires:

• 80% of the 12,000 who lost their homes on Maui in August 2023 were in apartments, and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) does not give out housing grants to apartment dwellers. So thousands of people without insurance or FEMA money will need affordable home builds.
• Maui is not ready to host volunteer groups yet. There is no housing for volunteers and 95% of food is imported to Maui. Volunteers could be potentially a big drain on the local economy. 
• 100% of property has been tested and gravel has been put over it. This was the job of the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. Their timelines was 18 months and they did it in 12 months; a tremendous effort on the part of these agencies.
• Maui is ready to shift into long term recovery (LTRG). There is a Maui LTRG forming on Maui that is working on their non profit status. It will relate to the Hawaii VOAD as a member. There is good local leadership in Maui working on this.
• Even people with good home owner’s insurance are not getting compensated adequately to rebuild. The high cost of housing is going to be a big challenge. The Maui LTRG is going to need to raise massive amounts of money to help people afford to rebuild.

Army Corps of Engineers and EPA coordinate to assess and clean up hazardous waste and debris removal on each piece of property that experienced burn damage. It is a multi-step process and no construction is allowed to build until the process is done and the property is cleared. They put up signs like this on every property to show the progress.  

Everyone Wants To Be a Hero

They shared around the table that one of the biggest challenges is partners who do not think to coordinate with the Hawaii VOAD. This is trouble for them locally. Efforts are duplicated and inappropriate responses are the direct result of not coordinating with VOADs and local LTRGs.  “Everyone wants to be the hero” and come in with donations and supplies–which may or may not be needed by the community. What is truly needed are people willing to come to do the quiet, humble work of listening to local leaders and fitting into an ecosystem of services on the ground. This takes time, and careful attention, but that’s what is most effective. Not dramatic airdrops of supplies or headline rescues–those are for trained emergency management systems and professionals to do immediately after a disaster. Long term recovery is very different–it is a marathon, not a sprint.

PDA and Pacific Presbytery are here for long haul in Maui. And we are doing and will continue to do exactly that–listen, learn, coordinate, cooperate, collaborate, communicate, and accompany. It is the local community–not people from the outside–that recovers from a disaster. 

I am grateful for what I learned from the mountain today. Let’s listen and learn together over the next two weeks a quiet, humble, listening model of disaster response, following the Apostle Paul’s instructions in the book of Philippians: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 2:3-5