Hawaii County on Friday released the long-awaited Kilauea Recovery and Resilience Plan, a strategic document that will help guide the county’s recovery from the 2018 eruption of Kilauea volcano.
According to a news release from the county, the plan builds on recovery initiatives that are ongoing and identifies additional projects that fit within three core strategies: eruption recovery, disaster readiness and community resilience.
The plan identifies priorities for each project, steps to take, work already in progress, potential funding sources and project leads and partners.
Projects identified within the plan include, among others:
Kilauea Eruption Recovery Projects
• Road restoration, including Pohoiki Road; Highway 137 to Vacationland near Opihikao, where temporary measures were completed; Lighthouse Road and an integrated management plan for Kumukahi; and a section of Leilani Avenue to access isolated properties.
• Voluntary housing buyout program for the voluntary purchase of homes impacted by the volcanic disaster or threatened by future volcanic events. Priority areas include lands inundated or isolated by lava in 2018 and areas experiencing surface heat as a result of volcanic activity.
• Housing relocation services, including identification of rental properties, financial assistance with housing security costs and locating housing for sale.
• Restoring access to Pohoiki boat ramp.
• Hiring a professional planning consultant to develop a new regional town center master plan for Pahoa.
• Broadband feasibility study.
Disaster Readiness Projects
• Explore and identify land-use policies to support recovery and hazard mitigation.
• Improve emergency response communication.
• Conduct a vulnerability and needs assessment of critical roads and bridges that will identify retrofitting projects and critical routes in support of improved road connectivity.
• Perform an assessment of facilities used as shelters and develop evacuation and sheltering protocol, policies and procedures.
• Volcanic gas and particulate monitoring.
• Develop a pre-disaster recovery preparedness framework to support coordination and expedited recovery efforts, building on lessons learned in 2018.
Community Resilience — Building Community Capacity Projects
• Coordinate with community networks and partners to support ongoing initiatives and to develop and implement projects to protect and preserve cultural resources and native ecosystems, control invasive species, reduce pollution and more.
• Establish a network of “resilience hubs.”
• Food security and resilience, and agricultural development.
• Improve access to health care and social service providers.
To see the full Kilauea Recovery and Resilience Plan, along with an economic recovery plan, visit recovery.hawaiicounty.gov/planning/recovery-plans-strategies.