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Lahaina fire spurs students to learn emergency preparedness

CERT program trains volunteers in basic disaster response

By Melissa Tanji 5 min read

WAILUKU--Seventeen-year-old Carla Mae Agrade felt helpless seeing her hometown of Lahaina on fire and not being able to help volunteers who assisted her community in the fire's aftermath.

"I saw the fire while evacuating. I just saw fire everywhere. I want to do something to stop it but I don't have the knowledge how to," said the Lahainaluna High School senior on Wednesday. "And I want to help the volunteers, they are giving out relief food. I wanted to help but I don't have the capability of doing it."

"All I had to do was watch, pray for them," Agrade said.

But this week Agrade and just over 100 other high school students from across the state were able to gain knowledge and hands-on skills that could help in disaster situations.

The students, including more than 50 from Lahaina and other Maui communities, participated in Hawaii nonprofit ClimbHI's Community Emergency Response Team training for Hawaii high school students. The free three-day program, which was held at Baldwin High School and ended Wednesday, aimed to bring youth together and is modeled after the national Federal Emergency Management Agency CERT volunteer program to train community volunteers in disaster preparedness and emergency response. It included a CERT certification along with Red Cross certifications in first aid and CPR. Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke also spoke to the students.

CERT trains volunteers in basic skills such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization and disaster medical operations, which can help professional first responders focus on more complex tasks in emergencies, according to FEMA.

Dozens of partners across the state supported the three-day program for local youth, including the Red Cross, the Hawai'i Community Foundation's Maui Strong Fund, U.S. Army, Kamehameha Schools and Alaska Airlines.

Prior to the students putting on display what they learned through live simulated exercises Wednesday, Agrade said she had learned some CPR in a school class, but "when I came here, I maximized that."

"It's so cool. I learned this stuff," she said.

Agrade said she is not aiming for a career in medicine or emergency response but said what she gained will be useful.

"Whatever happens, I can help out," she said.

Looking at the students who were having lunch at the Baldwin campus, ClimbHI founder and President Julie Morikawa said, "They are amazing. They are all leaders."

She said there were students from rural communities, including Kau, Waianae, Molokai and Niihau. Some participants canceled trips to California and other plans to be at the event, which took place during fall break for public schools.

"The beauty of what we are doing, the training is really secondary, the reasons the kids are together are to meet and connect and to share ideas," Morikawa said.

This includes students from communities who would not necessarily be able to meet one another, such as Molokai students interacting with Kau students coming from communities who both may be facing agricultural challenges.

"They are able to share these ideas. They are able to work together, put projects together. That is where the future is," she said. "So this group, this doesn't end today, this is the beginning."

Morikawa said students will elect leaders from the group who have a kuleana to give back to their communities and also will work on how they are going to change their communities.

Maui High sophomores Angel Alba and Gyan Bumanglag, both of Kahului, said they attended the program so they would know what to do if a disaster happened.

Alba, who would like to be a pediatric nurse, said it was beneficial learning about first aid and CPR. She also wants "to help teach others who don't know this stuff."

Bumanglag said she wants to be an ultrasound technician, confessing she doesn't like seeing blood.

Lahainaluna junior RJ Arconado wanted to learn emergency preparedness because of the Aug. 8 fires.

"With the recent wildfires, that was like terrifying. I want to be part of a team that would allow me to essentially prepare myself and to educate other people on how to be prepared, how to help during and after" a disaster, Arconado said.

"And I just find it so amazing, look at all of these students. Day one, we were representing our school shirts, second and the last days, look at us, we are all unified, under one uniform," Arconado said, referring to the students eating lunch and wearing dark blue shirts with the words "Maui Strong" on the front and "Hawaii Strong" on the back.

Lahainaluna junior Janice Yabo said when she and her friends heard about the program, they wanted to attend.

"With everything that happened in Maui ... we need something like this," the Napili resident said.

Yabo at least knew one of the skills in advance--"CPR makes sense, everybody knows CPR," she said--but she also picked up other useful guidance.

"They teach you skills that I never learned or never heard of," Yabo said, adding that this included cribbing, which is when a temporary wooden structure is used to support heavy objects during search and rescues, and triage, which involves assessing the urgency of patients' needs in an emergency.

Yabo said she does not intend on going into the medical field but that the program was worthwhile.

"If anything ever happens you have that training behind," she added.

* Staff Writer Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

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