New online tool helps Oahu residents determine disaster risk

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – City officials unveiled an easier way to help keep Oahu residents and their families safe this hurricane season, which is expected to be busier than normal.

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During a press conference Tuesday, the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) launched the Oahu Hazard Explorer, a website that allows residents to determine their disaster risk.

Residents can input their address in a search bar, or drop a pin on a map on the homepage to find details on how they should prepare based on where they live.

Before the site, if you wanted to know whether you were in a tsunami evacuation zone, flood zone, dam evacuation zone, or if the area you live in was at risk of wildfires, you had to go to a separate site for each.

“A lot of times when they visited those sites to determine hazard risk, the results weren’t completed or shown very clearly. There was not plain language to help people understand their risk,” Department of Emergency Management deputy director Jennifer Walter said.

In addition to combining the information on one site, the Department also simplified its wording.

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“What we’ve done is we’ve gone through and we’ve included information on what it means and what you should potentially do in those scenarios in really simple language,” department public information and education officer Molly Pierce said.

DEM also factored in lessons learned from last year’s tsunami, when it said many did not know what to do whether they were in or out of an evacuation zone.

The website “specifies in which cases you would evacuate. For red, that’s all tsunami warnings,” Pierce added.

The new tool comes after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted this hurricane season could be busier than normal. An average year brings four to five tropical cyclones to the Central Pacific, but outlooks this season suggest the basin could see as many as 13.

“One of the key actions that we stress in disaster preparedness is knowing what hazards can affect you and your family, so you include that in your family disaster plan,” Walter urged.

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Click here to access the Oahu Hazard Explorer.