Requires that all emergency shelters in Hawaii be equipped with windows and doors that meet Federal Emergency Management Agency community emergency shelter standards. (SD1)

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. Hurricanes are among the most destructive forces on earth. The primary objective for providing community shelters is ensuring the safety of the occupants within the shelters. Since the early 1970s, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has conducted studies to determine design parameters for shelters intended to provide protection from tornadoes, hurricanes, and other extreme wind events. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has found that, to a large extent, wind damage and building failure are preventable through compliance with up-to-date building codes and engineering standards and the use of construction techniques proven to minimize wind damage.

Building failures occur when winds produce forces that the buildings were not designed or constructed to withstand. Failures also occur when the breaching of a window or door creates an opening in the building that allows wind to enter the building, where it produces forces that the building was not designed to withstand.

Hurricanes are categorized based upon wind speed and velocity. For the Hawaiian islands, the Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends that windows and doors in buildings designated for use as emergency shelters have a one hundred sixty miles per hour design wind speed rating and a missile speed rating of eighty-four miles per hour horizontal and fifty-six miles per hour vertical to ensure shelter building integrity during a hurricane.

In Hawaii, the need for secure emergency shelters is elevated because residents and visitors cannot move away from a storm as they do on the mainland. The 2003 Oahu civil defense disaster mitigation report lists two recurring deficiencies it reported in its survey of community emergency shelters: penetration of windows by windborne debris and unsecured and poorly braced doors.

The purpose of this Act is to ensure the safety of Hawaii's emergency shelters by requiring all emergency shelters in the State to be in compliance with recommended Federal Emergency Management Agency hurricane standards for doors and windows.

SECTION 2. The vice director of civil defense shall require that all emergency shelters in the State be equipped with windows and doors that conform with federal hurricane damage mitigation standards as prescribed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency by June 1, 2007.

SECTION 3. Section 431P-16, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsections (h) and (i) to read as follows:

"(h) Moneys in the hurricane reserve trust fund or in trust or custodial accounts, created for the benefit of the fund's secured parties, shall be expended by the Hawaii hurricane relief fund or its authorized designee and used solely for the purposes of this chapter[.], or as otherwise provided by law.

(i) Moneys in the hurricane reserve trust fund may be:

provided that all interest earned from the principal in the hurricane reserve trust fund shall be transferred and deposited into the general fund each year that the hurricane reserve trust fund remains in existence."

SECTION 4. There is appropriated out of the hurricane reserve trust fund the sum of $          , or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2005-2006, for equipping emergency shelters in the State with windows and doors that conform with federal hurricane damage mitigation standards.

SECTION 5. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of defense for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2005.