Hurricane Lowell Relief: September 14 Update
Island Updates & Ways to Help
As Rotarians, our commitment is Service Above Self — and right now that means making sure our North Shore neighbors know where to find food, ice, and recovery help, and supporting the local farmers who keep this island fed. If you or someone you know needs help connecting to these resources, or wants to get involved through the club's own Disaster Relief efforts, reach out to Mark Wolfendale, our Disaster Relief program contact.
County Update: Food Security Becomes the Next Challenge
With so many households on Kauaʻi still without power, and no refrigeration, food security has become one of the most urgent parts of this recovery. Here's where our members and North Shore neighbors can turn for help right now:
- Aloha United Way 211 Helpline: connects people who need muck-out, cleaning, tarping, and other Hurricane Lowell assistance. Phone 211, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Website: www.auw211.org
- Food distribution Tuesday, September 15: 4 to 6 p.m. at Anahola Clubhouse, 3900 Kawelo Street, Anahola; 3 to 5 p.m. at Kōloa Ball Park, Maluhia Road, Kōloa
- Food banks: Hawaiʻi Foodbank Kauai and Kauaʻi Independent Food Bank
- North Shore food pantries (recurring, especially critical since our part of the island is still hit hardest): St. William Church, Hanalei, Fridays 7:45 to 8:30 a.m., (808) 346-2850; St. William Church at Hanalei Colony Resort, Hāʻena, Thursdays 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.; Church of the Pacific, Princeville, Wednesdays 1 to 3 p.m., (808) 826-6481; North Shore Food Pantry, Anaina Hou Community Park, Kīlauea, Saturdays 1 to 3 p.m., contact@kauaifoodpantry.org
- Free ice: Mālama Kauaʻi has been giving out free ice at their Food Hub next to Big Monster Thai on Kūhiō Highway in Līhuʻe. Mahalo to North Shore Councilwoman Felicia Cowden, who helped spread the word and hauled a load up to Kīlauea herself, and to Councilmember Holland, who spent days connecting ice makers and getting Mālama Kauaʻi on board. That North Shore ice has already been hand-delivered door-to-door to kūpuna.
- SNAP emergency replacement: On September 10, 2026, the USDA approved a Hawaiʻi Department of Human Services request for mass SNAP benefit replacement for households impacted by Hurricane Lowell power outages, island-wide. Info: humanservices.hawaii.gov/bessd/snap
If you or someone you know needs help connecting to these resources, or wants to get involved through the club's own Disaster Relief efforts, reach out to Mark Wolfendale.
Why Local Food Matters: Lessons from Lowell
A Honolulu Star-Advertiser story published this week put hard numbers behind something our club has always believed in: community self-reliance. Hawaiʻi imports 80 to 90% of its food, and Kauaʻi has lost nearly a third of its farms since 2017, the steepest drop of any county in the state. This week's storm made the stakes real. At Kauai Kunana Dairy in Kīlauea, the island's only dairy farm, Louisa Wooten estimates she lost 50 mature fruit trees and has been running generators at roughly $100 a day just to keep her goat cheese and soursop puree from spoiling. "If there's ever a time to support local farmers, it's right now," she said. "This really hits below the belt." Megan Fox, Executive Director of Mālama Kauaʻi, put it plainly: "If you're not buying local food on a weekly basis, how do you expect them to stay alive so that they're around?" And Wailua homesteader Xochi Weigel, who ate from her own garden all week while stores emptied around her, asked the question our club keeps coming back to: "Why are we trying to get back to a system that so easily collapsed overnight?"
This is exactly the kind of long-term community resilience work Service Above Self is about. Mālama Kauaʻi is looking for volunteers to help local farmers and families get through this. If you can give a few hours, they'd welcome it.
250 Crews Now Racing to Restore Kauai's Final 20%
With so many of our North Shore members and neighbors still waiting on power, here's the latest on the restoration effort. About 100 additional crew members from Hawaiian Electric, HMS Construction, and Southern California Edison joined Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) crews Monday morning, bringing the total restoration workforce to 250. Nearly 90% of the island lost power when Hurricane Lowell tore through early last Tuesday morning; as of Sunday, KIUC had restored electricity to more than 80% of affected members. 'It's difficult to talk about speed of restoration as a positive item, when we still have 20% of our members out, but getting 80% restored in under a week, given the scale of the damage that's been seen on the island, is an awesome accomplishment,' said KIUC President and CEO David Bissell.
Crews focused first on repairing transmission lines before moving into Kauai's major population centers and priority issues. Ahead of the storm, KIUC had already replaced more than 1,400 poles, about 10% of the utility's roughly 16,000 poles island-wide, after an assessment using sonar and drone technology to identify the poles in the worst condition. 'It's always difficult to say what would have happened, but I'm very confident we would have had much more extensive damage if that had not occurred,' Bissell said.
At Gov. Josh Green's request, Air Force crews delivered six utility trucks to Līhuʻe Airport by cargo flight Saturday evening, the same Southern California Edison trucks used for power restoration after Hurricane Lala on Hawaiʻi Island. That crew, along with more than 40 Hawaiian Electric workers, is now on Kauai helping close the gap.
For the roughly one in five households still waiting, including many of our own North Shore neighbors, Bissell had this message: 'We know it's very difficult, going on a week now without power, particularly in this heat. They have our sympathies and we're doing everything that we can to try to get people back as soon as we can in a safe manner.' If you or someone you know is still without power and needs help in the meantime, reach out to Mark Wolfendale, our Disaster Relief program contact.
Source: Pacific Business News (subscription required)
