A statewide residential hurricane retrofit program is on track to roll out this year with new funding from the Green Fee.

Read more Sinner bloodied during fierce five-set victory in Wimbledon opener

The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency received $4 million to administer a pilot program to help residents harden their homes against hurricanes, HIEMA Administrator James Barros told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

The program, which is still in its design phase, will target vulnerable communities, including low-income or elderly homeowners. Barros, who retires Wednesday, said he expects the program to be available to residents toward the third quarter of Hawaii’s fiscal year, which goes from Jan. 1 through March 31.

Wind retrofitting will be the priority, Barros said, with the program aiming to help residents add hurricane clips, continuous load paths and window protection. He added that both single- and double-walled homes will be able to qualify for the program because retrofitting not only helps with hurricane sheltering, but it also can help minimize damage in the aftermath.

“If I’m a homeowner and I have a single home and I take advantage of this program, I strengthen my roof, I strengthen my windows and my doors, that might not be the best place for me to shelter during a large hurricane,” Barros said. “However, we believe that it’ll help keep the structure intact so that when I come back, I’m not looking at a pile of rubble.”

Barros said the program is similar to a state-run program that took place in the early 2000s following Hurricane Iniki on Kauai. That program, known as the Loss Mitigation Grant Program, was active for just two fiscal years from 2006 to 2008, according to Hawaii’s Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and reimbursed homeowners 35% of the cost of hurricane retrofits up to $2,100. Around 430 homes took advantage of the program.

Efforts in the Legislature that would incentivize homeowners to retrofit through tax breaks or other means have stalled in recent years. Barros said he tried to fill the gap in 2023, when he challenged his team to retrofit 1,000 homes per year with strict criteria to prioritize vulnerable communities as the program depended on donated material and labor. But that program never got off the ground, he said, because the agency had to refocus all of its efforts toward the Lahaina wildfires and recovery.

Read more UH Hilo to offer new AI concentration

“We had to focus on that disaster, so when this opportunity came up we jumped on it,” Barros said. “This is exactly what we were talking about, meeting the needs of strengthening those homes.”

The new program is still in its design phase, Barros said, so he is unsure of the exact details of what homeowners may be able to receive under it and when it will be available. He hopes to retrofit 50 to 100 homes in each county under the program in its first year, evaluate results and then advocate for the Green Fee to continue sponsoring the program for years to follow.

HIEMA state hazard mitigation officer Kelsey Yamanaka emphasized that the pilot program will not be short-lived.

“We just needed to start with something technically feasible and make sure that we responsibly use the funds that were given to us from the Green Fee, and we hope that there are many more iterations,” she said. “This is a kakou (collective) effort. We do need to make sure that we’re all working together and we all are leveraging some of these funds that are available to us for the very first time. We’re very excited to kick out this program.”

Barros added homes are residents’ first line of defense against hurricanes and is where preparedness planning starts.

“One of the things you know that is common knowledge is we don’t have enough government shelters for a hurricane,” Barros said. “So you can strengthen your home. That’s the best line of defense, right there.”

Read more Morocco inflict World Cup heartbreak on the Netherlands after chaotic penalty shootout