Hurricane Iwa - Aftermath

Aftermath

Three days after Hurricane Iwa passed the state, Governor George Ariyoshi declared the islands of Kauai and Niihau as disaster areas and began filing papers for a federal disaster declaration. On November 28, five days after the hurricane struck, President Ronald Reagan declared the islands of Kauai, Niihau, and Oahu as a disaster area. The declaration allocated federal funds to aid the affected citizens. The state Department of Education decided to close all schools on Kauai indefinitely.

The thousands of Hawaiians without power celebrated Thanksgiving by cooking turkeys on outdoor grills or smokers. Army and Air Force planes delivered 20,000 Thanksgiving rations to the thousands left in temporary shelters. The United States military also airlifted generators to Kauai due to several days of power outages. By a week after the hurricane, utility crews restored power to nearly all major areas in Oahu, while 5,000 remained without power in Kauai. By around a month after the hurricane passed the island, utilities were restored to most of the entire island. All roads and highways were cleared, as well. One 25th Infantry Division soldier at Schofield Barracks died while cleaning up after the hurricane. Two people died in a traffic accident due to malfunctioning traffic lights. Following the storm, significant redevelopment occurred in Poipu, where the hurricane flooded areas several hundred feet inland. Hurricane Iniki struck the same area ten years later. Officials estimate a hurricane similar to Iwa striking Oahu in 1992 could cause up to $7.5 billion in damage (USD).

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center retired the name Iwa subsequent to the storm and replaced it with Io. Due to low amounts of tropical activity in the central Pacific Ocean, the name Io has not since been used. Iwa was the first retired hurricane in the Central Pacific since the modern system of using Hawaiian naming began in the early 1980s, and it remains one of only four to be retired as of 2007.