Margie Flores introduced our speaker Charnan Carroll, who spoke about the Maui Civil Defense Agency. She repeated a Mahatma Gandhi quote, "The future depends on what you do today" and strongly encouraged us to Prepare Today, Plan, and Stay informed.  Maui is susceptible to many kinds of disaster—hurricanes,high winds, flash floods, wildfires, high surf, Tsunami and man-made hazards.

How we prepare now can determine how well we face any disaster.  She showed us a map from this page on the Maui County website showing updated information on evacuation zones.

Charnan told us about Maka'ala, the new Maui County  EAS (Emergency Alert System-click to see)  which can send to your home phone, cell phone, email, text or turn on a radio with critical information and level of severˆty quickly in a variety of situations, such as those listed above as well as severe weather, unexpected road closures, missing persons and evacuations of buildings or neighborhoods. We need to find the right warning system for each of us and be prepared.

Lastly, she explained the value of CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams) and the training they offer to us in the community who wish to be on the team to help after a disaster.  The next South Maui training session is in Kihei starting next April 4. See the CERT website.