Hawaiʻi County wants to move around some federal funds in order to pay for a new Waikoloa Village evacuation study.
The study would estimate how long it takes residents to escape the village in the event of a disaster like a wildfire or a hurricane. It would also look at the challenges that vulnerable populations like kūpuna experience during evacuations.
The Waikoloa community was last called to evacuate in 2021 due to the threat of the massive Mana Road fire, which burned more than 40,000 acres on Hawaiʻi Island.
Residents reported gridlocked traffic during the evacuation order. For some, the normally 10-minute drive to the nearest highway took hours.
The funds for the evacuation study will come from a $6.8 million disaster mitigation grant that the county received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
That money has technically all been earmarked for other projects, but the county said that another planned hazard analysis has been fully funded through other sources.
It plans to amend the county's Multi-Hazard Mitigation action plan in order to free up $420,000 from that project for the Waikoloa evacuation study.
The county expects to have the study completed by May 2026.
The public comment period on the proposed amendment is open now until the end of the month. There will be a public meeting held over Zoom at 5 p.m. on April 16.
