Town Meeting 2008_Panel Speeches

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Genevieve Cain Focus Areas: Promoting Health and Safety; Strengthening and Sustaining our Community <INTRODUCTION> Good Evening. I would like you to consider this question: If a devastating tsunami arrived in Hilo tomorrow, how would it affect us? Would each one of us be safe? Do we have the local resources to be able to sustain ourselves after the disaster? Would our local economy be able to recover? I'll come back to this. <MAIN BODY - assets> The Hilo community has a number of great assets and I would like highlight three in particular: 1) Firstly, this community maintains the perseverance to keep going, no matter what. We can see this time after time following past destructive tsunamis. What has emerged from these events and other disasters is an incredible ability to adapt, recover, learn and move on. Through the days and through the nights after the tsunamis of 1946 and 1960 the downtown Hilo community worked together, side by side, to clear away debris, rescue and recover loved ones and restore what was lost. 2) Secondly, deeply engrained in the Hawaiian culture exists a respect for, and understanding of the environment around us. Here in Hawai'i we must protect our land and our resources, because they are finite. We are an island community in the middle of a vast ocean, relying on air and sea to connect us to surrounding continents. With our harbors, and a majority of our airports in tsunami evacuation zones we are always vulnerable to natural and man -made hazards. As our host culture understands, it is in our'ohana, our family, that we receive knowledge needed to sustain our existence here. 3) Lastly, the people of downtown Hilo have an undying sense of community that remains unshaken by disasters, by economy, by interference. The sense of community is real, it is true, it embraces and it nurtures <MAIN BODY — Challenges> 1