PAHALA — Six days after Hurricane Lala battered southern Big Island, Lorene Agustin was still without electricity.

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The 72-year-old Pahala resident expects her power to remain out until Sept. 8. She does not have a generator. Neither did the local disaster center, which Agustin said remained closed until Friday afternoon after a community member pushed for a generator to be brought in.

For residents in this rural community, recovering from Lala has meant boiling water when they can, searching for propane, driving more than an hour to Hilo for supplies and relying heavily on neighbors — many of them seniors themselves — to deliver food, water, ice and other necessities.

And now, with another storm system expected to affect Hawaii today and Monday, the relief that Pahala residents have found in one another is mixed with a growing fear: What happens if they are hit again before basic services are restored?

“We should learn from this,” Agustin said. “Everything is going to happen again. History keeps repeating itself. If nothing changes in the way the government works, we’re going to keep going through the same thing.”

Pahala is an old plantation town where many residents are older adults. For years, neighbors have relied on the familiarity of a small community where people know who lives alone, who does not have a car and who may need help getting food or medicine.

After Lala, that knowledge became an informal emergency-response system.

Fely Villegas, 80, grew up in Naalehu and moved to Pahala after she married. She and other members of the local senior club have been going house to house distributing water, sandwiches and whatever supplies they can find.

The club keeps a list of seniors in the area, making it easier to identify residents who may need assistance.

She recently drove 87-year-old Rosita Tungpalan to a drive-through distribution site after Tungpalan, who was running low on gas, said she did not feel comfortable driving to get supplies. Villegas also helped her get her gas tank filled for free.

Other residents have done the same. Community members have cooked meals, delivered supplies and opened their homes as makeshift distribution points. A local coffee shop gave away hot dogs and iced coffee. People have distributed ice, pet food, batteries and other essentials for free.

“Over here, all is ohana,” Villegas said.

But the fact that seniors are helping other seniors is also a sign of the gap residents say they are being forced to fill themselves.

“They’re supposed to be settling down and enjoying their lives,” said Marlene Freitas, a community member. “Instead, they’re having to worry and stress about things they shouldn’t have to.”

Freitas said community members initially organized distribution pickups for general necessities. As they saw how many older residents were struggling, they shifted their focus and began assembling small bags tailored to kupuna, filling them with essentials as well as snacks and small treats meant to bring some comfort during a difficult week.

Damage at Naalehu

Pahala was not as severely damaged as nearby Naalehu, where Lala caused deadly flooding and extensive destruction. Water service has returned to Pahala, but electricity has not.

Agustin said the lack of power has affected nearly every part of daily life. Residents are losing food stored in refrigerators and freezers. They have difficulty charging phones. Some cannot find propane to boil water.

The local Bank of Hawaii branch, she said, does not have a backup generator, leaving some residents concerned about running out of cash.

Getting supplies in Hilo is possible — but expensive and difficult for people without reliable transportation.

“It’s a long drive,” Agustin said. “Gas is expensive. You need to buy lots of things, and some of us don’t have big cars.”

Residents said state, county and federal agencies, along with the Red Cross, have come into the community to assess the damage and determine what residents need. But Agustin said assessments alone are not enough.

Freitas said she wants officials to spend more time in the community and see firsthand what residents are experiencing, rather than simply coming in to assess the damage and leave.

“You have to understand what we’re going through,” Freitas said. “Come in, stay with us, see what we’re going through. Then you’ll understand how much we’re suffering and what kind of help we really need.”

Agustin said residents need immediate assistance, not another assessment.

“What more do you need to assess?” Agustin said. “Just come help. We need it.”

She also pointed to the lack of a functioning community hub in Pahala where residents could charge phones and access basic services. The nearest hub is in Naalehu, she said, but residents are hesitant to go there because the community is still struggling with the hurricane’s damage and they do not want to take resources or get in the way of those already responding.

Brenda Iokepa-Moses, a government community liaison with the Edmund C. Olson Trust, said the community’s response has exposed weaknesses in the formal disaster infrastructure.

Emergency shelters, she said, provided a place for people to stay but did not provide food or water, leaving community members to fill those needs.

“The government needed to do better,” Iokepa-Moses said.

She said communication before the hurricane was strong, but communication during and after the storm was poor.

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The community also should have had stronger backup communications, including reliable internet access, she said.

“We should’ve had Starlink,” Iokepa-Moses said. “Having no access to the internet adds to the stress level. We should’ve had big generators ready — they didn’t prepare the community.”

Villegas said the problems did not begin with Lala.

She remembers the Kona-­low storms earlier this year, when heavy rain and flooding already exposed vulnerabilities in Ka‘u. She questions why those experiences did not result in stronger preparation for the next disaster.

Freitas believes rural communities are repeatedly treated as an afterthought compared with more populated parts of the island.

“We had the Kona lows. Why didn’t the county and state prepare for this one? We hadn’t even fully recovered from the Kona lows in March yet,” she said. “We had it bad in Ka‘u, but no one talked about it. And then we got hit hard by Hurricane Lala. That’s because we’re a rural area.”

The frustration extends beyond emergency response.

Agustin pointed to broken lights at the community park and a swimming pool that has gone unrepaired. She also said the local shelter lacked a backup generator.

“When we tried seeking shelter, there was no light at sundown. Might as well just stay home,” she said. “What kind of shelter doesn’t have a backup generator? It’s a shelter.”

She also worries about infrastructure in the mountains surrounding Pahala, where she said changes to drainage and flooding patterns have made areas vulnerable that did not flood when she was growing up.

Agustin was born and raised in Pahala. She said she has watched the community change over the years as flooding, damaged roads and storms become more disruptive.

“I’m afraid of living here now, and I’m afraid for future generations,” she said. “The kids won’t get to have the same experience growing up here that I did.”

Despite the frustration, community members say Lala also has demonstrated the strength of Ka‘u’s informal network.

Stronger together

Iokepa-Moses described the community as strong before a crisis and even stronger once a crisis arrives.

“Everyone got their stuff together and just started working,” she said.

Residents set up distribution points out of their homes. One person handled pet food. Another distributed batteries. Others brought ice, food and water.

Those efforts could become a blueprint for the next disaster.

“We’re going to have to get together and have someone in charge of logistics and food, and others in charge of things like a community-run hub,” Iokepa-­Moses said. “So when disaster strikes again, these subcommunities can just hit the ground running.”

Villegas said the community expected its neighbors to step up — even though no one expected the hurricane to leave Pahala without power for weeks.

“We didn’t expect this to happen, but we expected community to come help out,” she said. “That’s just Pahala. That’s Naalehu. That’s Ka‘u.”

Freitas said the response has extended beyond the island, with support coming from people outside Hawaii as well.

Residents are grateful, she said, but the need goes beyond food and water.

She is increasingly concerned about the emotional toll of repeated disasters, particularly among people who have lost homes and are facing the prospect of rebuilding their lives from scratch.

For older residents, Freitas said, that burden can be especially difficult.

“They’re supposed to be settling down and enjoying their lives,” she said.

By Friday, Pahala was still recovering from Lala, with some residents without power and supplies difficult to get.

Now, another storm system is expected this weekend, raising concerns among residents who have yet to fully recover.

Agustin worries the community will again be left to solve its own problems.

“Everything is going to repeat itself,” Agustin said. “The state should’ve learned from the Kona lows, and it feels like we didn’t.”

Pahala’s residents have shown that they can organize quickly when disaster strikes. Seniors have delivered food to seniors. Neighbors have opened their homes as distribution centers. Residents have identified who needs help and figured out how to get it to them.

But community resilience, residents say, should not be mistaken for adequate preparation.

They can help each other survive a disaster, but they should not have to be the disaster response system.

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