Residents interested in learning more about coastal zoning on Hawaii Island have a new tool at their fingertips.

The Hawaii County Planning Department recently launched an interactive Coastal Zone Management Atlas website.

In addition to providing an overview of different coastal ecosystems in the county, the site allows users to search an address and select various filters to view potential coastal hazards and regulations specific to that site, among other features.

“It really allows people to zoom in on their community or property, if they’re a property owner, and understand all of the very technical pieces that there are to consider about our coastal zone,” said Bethany Morrison, the planning program manager for the Long-Range Panning Division at the county.

She said her office often gets questions from residents about Hawaii’s Special Management Area, which covers the land along the coast of the island and has specific regulations and requirements for development permits.

“So, this will give them a much deeper dive into what is the Special Management Area? What are those permit requirements? Is my property even in the Special Management Area?” She said. “All of those questions that we get, we’re trying to provide some resources for them.”

The tool was developed with the assistance of Tetra Tech and funded with an award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and used data provided by the University of Hawaii at Hilo to create the mapping component. It took about six months and $26,267 to create. Morrison said it is part of a larger, ongoing project to re-evaluate the county’s shoreline setback policies.

“We are the only county that doesn’t have any type of erosion rate-based setbacks,” she said. “Our current shoreline setback is 40 feet, kind of regardless of what type of shoreline you’re on, what type of hazards there are – it’s just a standard sort of distance.”

Which she said does not account for other factors that could be important.

“In some cases, 40 feet is plenty, and in some cases, it’s not, depending on where you are and what’s happening, so we initiated this project to really understand what changes are happening along our shoreline, and if there’s a way to include those changes in the calculation of our setbacks,” she said.

She said she views the atlas as a valuable precursor to any changes to the setback requirements that might be introduced.

“Before we get to that, we want people to have a really good understanding of what’s happening along our coastline and be able to explore things for themselves before we try and introduce any type of changes to our regulations,” she said. “So, that’s a big purpose, is to just get this out there, being used, having people understand what those pieces are — hazards, ecosystems that we want to protect — all those kinds of details.”

She said the site will be updated as new data becomes available.

The county hosted a webinar earlier this month to introduce the new tool and answer questions.

Another one is scheduled for May 7 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Anyone interested can register at: tinyurl.com/2pxat5n8.

The Coastal Zone Management Atlas can be viewed at: tinyurl.com/mstvyjyp.

Email Grace Inez Adams at grace.adams@hawaiitribune-herald.com.

Forecast for Big Island Windward and Southeast

Forecast for Big Island Leeward

A medium-period northwest swell peaks tonight into Sunday, producing small to moderate surf for north and west-facing shores, before gradually declining through early next week. A hurricane-force low tracking across the Aleutian Islands tonight should send a moderate northwest swell towards Hawaii around the middle of next week.

Short-period northeasterly energy is beginning to decrease this afternoon, which will keep below average surf along eastern exposures for the first half of next week due to the lack of any strong trade wind activity. Locally strong trade winds could return during the latter half of next week, which could bring rough and choppy surf with near normal wave heights.

Small background energy from the west will continue to linger through today and fade out on Sunday. A small southwest bump from the Tasman Sea is expected to slowly fill in tonight and peak on Sunday. No significant south swell is expected through the first half of next week. A fetch of gales passing east of New Zealand today could produce a small south-southwest swell for next weekend.

NORTH EAST

am        pm  

Surf: Minimal (ankle high or less) surf.

Conditions: Semi choppy with ESE winds 5-10mph in the morning increasing to 10-15mph in the afternoon.

NORTH WEST

am        pm  

Surf: Minimal (ankle high or less) surf.

Conditions: Clean in the morning with ESE winds less than 5mph. Bumpy/semi bumpy conditions for the afternoon with the winds shifting W 5-10mph.

WEST

am        pm  

Surf: Minimal (ankle high or less) surf.

Conditions: Light sideshore texture in the morning with NNW winds 5-10mph. Bumpy/semi bumpy conditions for the afternoon with the winds shifting to the WNW.

SOUTH EAST

am        pm  

Surf: Minimal (ankle high or less) surf.

Conditions: Sideshore texture/chop with NE winds 10-15mph.

Data Courtesy of NOAA.gov and SwellInfo.com

Will the latest Kona low storms further strain Hawaii’s home insurance market, resulting in greater gaps in coverage?

The Insurance Fairness Project released a report Thursday detailing how costly climate disasters will shift Hawaii’s risk profile, resulting in even higher property insurance rates. This, in turn, will worsen Hawaii’s insurance crisis, leaving homeowners to pay the price.

Hundreds of thousands of properties in Hawaii do not currently qualify for flood insurance, the report noted, and many remain uninsured or underinsured despite these growing environmental risks.

Hawaii farmers, for instance, do not qualify for federal crop insurance since it is only available to large-scale, single-crop farms more commonly found on the U.S. continent.

“Hawaii is one of the states on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and the insurance system simply isn’t built to keep up,” said TJ Helmstetter, spokesperson for the Insurance Fairness Project, described as a national information hub. “Families are being priced out of protection, farmers are left without viable options, and entire communities are one disaster away from financial ruin.”

Policymakers have a narrowing window to close these dangerous coverage gaps, he added, and to ensure families are not shouldering the entire bill.

These extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more costly, the report noted, while insurance markets are struggling to keep pace, leaving Hawaii residents vulnerable to financial ruin when disaster strikes.

The Hawaii Insurance Division, however, said the Insurance Fairness Project report is an advocacy analysis, and that some of its statements are not based on data that it collected or verified.

“Like every other state in the U.S., Hawaii is experiencing increased pressure on its insurance market driven by a combination of factors,” said the division in a written statement, “including catastrophe risk, reinsurance costs, inflation, and property-specific vulnerabilities.

The division added that some of the specific claims in the report should be “viewed with caution.”

Coverage gaps

The cost of property insurance in Hawaii has only gotten more expensive, the report said, in the aftermath of recent, extreme weather-related events.

While the report said some home insurance providers hiked average premiums by more than 50% last year, following the Maui wildfires of August 2023, the Hawaii Insurance Division said that may reflect individual cases or limited datasets, but not necessarily statewide averages.

“Premium changes vary significantly by insurer, location and risk profile,” said the division.

Insurance claims for the recent Kona low storms, meanwhile, are likely still being worked out, for those who were covered.

The back-to-back storms which occurred over two weekends in March resulted in extensive damage, flooding hundreds of properties, including homes, schools, farms and businesses.

The torrential rains resulted in mudslides, landslides and sinkholes, damaging Hawaii roadways — and the closure of Kula Hospital on Maui.

Hawaii’s coverage gaps became clear in the aftermath of the storms, as most homeowners and renters learned their standard insurance policies were not accompanied by separate flood insurance to cover claims for floodwaters from the ground up.

According to the report, only 4.2% of properties statewide actually carry flood insurance. Some property owners do not have flood insurance because it is too expensive or because they were denied.

Hawaii farmers, meanwhile, are unable to find insurance policies that match their needs, the report said. Federal crop insurance is only available to large-scale, single-crop farms, but most farms in the Hawaiian isles grow diverse crops, and are a median size of 5 acres due to limited land availability.

The options are also prohibitively expensive, the report said. A small, family-run farm facing $2,000 a year in insurance premiums likely will opt to go without it.

“This extreme gap in coverage is especially concerning given how quickly flooding can occur in the islands,” said the report, “where intense rainfall can overwhelm landscapes within minutes.”

Critical
infrastructure

At the same time, the report said, the recent storms “exposed critical vulnerabilities” in infrastructure across the state.

“Floodwaters overwhelmed drainage systems not designed to carry this amount of water, inundating neighborhoods and damaging essential infrastructure,” said the report. “Roads were washed out, and water systems were compromised throughout multiple zip codes. Residents on Oahu were advised to boil their tap water before use and stockpile drinking water for up to two weeks due to contamination risks.”

Additionally, the report mentioned that Wahiawa Dam on Oahu, a 120-year-old dam owned by Dole Food Co., had accumulated fines since 2009 for not complying with safety standards.

City officials issued an evacuation notice for Waialua and Haleiwa residents during the second Kona low storm, warning that Wahiawa Dam failure was in progress or expected, which put communities on edge.

The dam ultimately did not fail during the Kona low storms, but the state is now moving to acquire it to make necessary upgrades.

These critical infrastructure weaknesses, the report said, make extreme weather disasters more costly.

“These risks to public health and safety highlight the need to update and maintain private and public infrastructure,” the report said. “The aftermath also surfaced gaps in the government’s ability to hold private companies and landowners accountable for risky or negligent behavior that creates or worsens risks.”

State leaders have responded, the group noted, but are not keeping pace with the rapidly escalating problem.

In 2025, Gov. Josh Green convened a task force to develop strategies for stabilizing the insurance market.

That year, the state Legislature passed a Senate bill that became Act 296, which reactivated the Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund to provide insurance coverage in scenarios where the private market fails to do so.

As of April 3, the Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund has issued 97 policies totaling about $2.7 million to condominium properties seeking hurricane property coverage, the state Insurance Division said.

Several legislative bills were introduced this session related to property insurance.

Among them are Senate Bill 2960, which establishes a minimum time frame of 24 months following loss for policyholders to submit documentation for full replacement costs of their homes. It also would allow extensions for good cause.

Senate Bill 1166 seeks to recover climate-related losses from a “responsible party” such as major oil and gas corporations.

The Hawaii Property Insurance Association, the Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund, or any private insurer would be allowed to bring civil action claims against responsible parties for losses resulting from climate change related disasters.

In December, the Hawaii Appleseed Center also released a report on how escalating climate disasters are reshaping the insurance market, and how they would impact working families, kupuna, and fixed-income households.

That report also warned that without swift action, escalating climate disasters would leave Hawaii homes uninsured.

The Hawaii Insurance Division said it would “continue to monitor market conditions, review rate filings, assist consumers, and work with policymakers and stakeholders to improve access to coverage while maintaining a stable and competitive insurance market.”