Ambrie Gilbert sold her car for $400 and spent nearly every dollar of it just to get her family off Hawaii Island after Hurricane Lala destroyed their Puna home in August. Weeks later, her family is out of immediate survival mode but still without a permanent place to call home, even as Hurricane Nolo swept past the islands over the weekend while recovery efforts continued.
Gilbert, who lived in Puna, lost her home when Hurricane Lala struck Hawaii island, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Her family, which includes a fiance and four young children, first sought help from the Neighborhood Place of Puna, which referred them to stay with relatives on Maui if possible. The family was offered a subsidized flight, but when the arrangement with relatives fell through, Gilbert was left scrambling. She sold her car for $400 and spent her remaining $350 to get her family to Maui, the paper reports.
Chaplain Ministries stepped in with $1,000 to cover six nights at an Airbnb, buying the family a little time. Gilbert's family then entered a Federal Emergency Management Agency program that provided temporary housing at the Grand Naniloa Hotel in Hilo, where they had stayed for about a week as of the report. About 25 people displaced by Hurricane Lala were temporarily staying at the same hotel, per the same account — a stopgap that echoes the hospitality rooms the Hawaii News Now reported the Naniloa had offered for up to 30 families right after the storm.
From Survival Mode Into the Slower Grind of Recovery
While on Maui, Gilbert found a job at Foodland and is now working to transfer to a Foodland location on Hawaii island, the Star-Advertiser reports. Her fiance also found work, and her children are in the process of returning to school. Gilbert put it simply: she has had to take leaps rather than baby steps to keep her family moving forward.
What Gilbert wants most for her kids is for them to feel normal again — back in school, with their toys, some sense of routine restored. Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, a Hawaii-based nonprofit serving mothers and children, checked on residents at the Grand Naniloa Hotel and provided Gilbert's family with diapers, children's snacks and toys, while also checking her vital signs. Gilbert admitted she had not focused on her own health while she was busy finding shelter and stabilizing her family, despite having medical conditions of her own.
Pohai A’arona, a community health nurse with Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, described a pattern the organization has seen play out again and again after disasters. The first two weeks are survival mode, she said, when families need food, water, fuel, ice and medicine. Later, they may need help cleaning homes, addressing mold, finding employment, returning children to school and dealing with mental health challenges, according to the nonprofit's account relayed by the Star-Advertiser.
A Statewide Toll Still Being Tallied
Hurricane Lala struck Hawaii Island in August without making landfall, but intense rainfall caused destructive flooding, damaged homes and infrastructure, and isolated communities, according to Direct Relief. Statewide, approximately 690 homes and structures were damaged, Hawaii News Now reported, citing officials. In the hard-hit Kaʻū District alone, 27 homes were destroyed, 60 had major damage, 79 had minor damage and another 51 were affected, according to Big Island Now.
Accounts of the human toll have varied. Direct Relief reported two deaths after the storm, while CNN reported at least one person had died in Hawaii after Hurricane Lala swept south of the state. Six bridges in the Kaʻū area were significantly damaged or destroyed, according to Hawaii Public Radio, and flooding completely cut off the community of Pāhala while partially isolating Nāʻālehu and Waiʻōhinu. Roads have been flooded and some communities remain difficult to access even weeks later, per the Star-Advertiser's report.
Volunteers and Nonprofits Fill the Gaps
Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies has expanded its disaster response to assist people across the community, with teams providing clinical care and basic supplies to families affected by both hurricanes Lala and Nolo, and connecting affected families with other resources. The organization worked about two weeks on the ground in Kaʻū and previously operated a mobile clinic on Kauai during Hurricane Lowell. It now runs two mobile clinics on Hawaii Island, both connected via Starlink satellite internet, per Direct Relief's account. The clinics reach people in homes and temporary housing, according to the Star-Advertiser. The nonprofit provides prenatal and postpartum care, reproductive health services and medications, and distributes diapers, food, formula and breast pumps, and can help replace medications or refill prescriptions for those who fled without them. Pohai Aʻarona, a community health nurse with the organization, is among the staff doing that work.
Direct Relief communications director Brea Burkholz said the organization relies on local groups to identify what communities actually need during a disaster. Disasters can force people to leave home without medications or daily necessities, complicating chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and asthma, the group notes. Direct Relief has prepositioned three emergency medical stockpiles in Hawaii and works with local health care providers during disasters; the organization has provided more than $820,000 in medical aid across the state since March's Kona-low storms, and more than $7 million since 2010, according to the Star-Advertiser.
A volunteer medical team operating out of the Naalehu Gym shelter, established through Hawaii County's existing mobile health program, has offered wound care, mental and behavioral health services and prescription refills, according to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. A separate supply hub in Kaʻū brought in nearly $100,000 worth of supplies and about 75 truckloads of goods over roughly two and a half to three weeks, the paper reported. Officials say the initial emergency response has increasingly given way to the more difficult work of long-term recovery, and Hawaii County plans to transition toward community resource centers addressing healthcare, employment, insurance and education needs.
For Gilbert, that longer recovery is now the daily reality — juggling a job transfer, her children's return to school, and her own health, all while hoping for stable housing back on Hawaii Island. She has urged other displaced families to seek help, use the programs available, be resourceful and not give up.
