Hawaii was our once-in-a-decade blowout family vacation. We sold our house—in Greenwich, Conn., no less, which is still, incredibly, recovering from the effects of the financial crisis. Some of our newfound liquidity was put into current consumption, trading future household square footage for an experience. YOLO.
When we left New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on March 16, there were less than 2,000 Covid-19 cases in the U.S., according to the World Health Organization. Washington state was the hardest-hit region of the country. There were a handful of cases in the state of Hawaii—less than 10. Things looked OK. (In fact, we were told we couldn’t defer the trip by our hotels and resorts.)
Things then escalated quickly. And the rapid, escalating response of Hawaiian officials tells a story about how the Aloha State balances its economy with human welfare. It also demonstrates how a people with a history of geographic and physical vulnerability reacts to new threats.
My little gaggle—another parent, two teens, and one still bearable child—was headed to two islands after landing on Oahu. First, the Big Island—also known as Hawaii—home to the world’s largest active volcano. Then, after a couple of days, off to Kauai—home to the iconic Na Pali coast as well as the 3,600-foot-deep Waimea canyon.
After a short hop from Oahu on Hawaiian Airlines, our first stop was Volcano Village on the island of Hawaii. The name sounds like something out of a Walt Disney theme park. The flora and design look like a theme park, except it’s real and much larger. The Kilauea Iki trail hike, for instance, covers four miles into and across a volcanic crater. The hardened lava lake looks flat from the starting point 400 feet above on the crater rim, but it isn’t.
On our arrival in Volcano Village, we learned local schools were already suspended. Restaurants were still serving eat-in meals. But the next day that had changed, and takeout only per the mandate from local officials. The same officials closed the state parks and beaches too. This was before 20 cases were confirmed in the state and before pockets of the U.S. mainland took similar steps.
“If the virus spreads here, it would be devastating,” said Barbara Sarbin, a local schoolteacher with ties to a nonprofit in New York state. “There are only a couple hundred hospital beds on the island.”
There are actually a few hundred beds on the Big Island, but her point is valid: It can’t handle a large outbreak. That’s part of the reason she believes officials underreacted to a couple of confirmed cases on her home island. Sarbin wants to see hotels closed and offering refunds or deferments to guests.
Her views turned out to be prescient. Half her students were already at home before the schools officially closed. “A lot of elders live with their families,” added Sarbin. The structure of the society in Hawaii means the stakes for community transmission of Covid-19 were too high. The locals seemed to recognize that fact as soon as the outbreak gained steam on the mainland.
She hated the closure of the state parks, though. “We need nature closening along with social distancing,” said Sarbin. “People need to be outside,” though she acknowledged the goal of the closings was to dissuade tourists from arriving.
A few days later, after two more flights—one from Hawaii to Maui and another from Maui to Kauai—we arrived to a 9 p.m. curfew put in place by the Kauai local government. Over the next couple of days, Oahu officials issued an order for any visitors from the mainland or overseas to quarantine for 14 days, effectively shutting down tourism in the state.
I tried to contact the governor and the Kauai mayor. Kauai officials responded with “mahalo,” the traditional Hawaiian expression of gratitude, but referred us to existing news releases because they were “beyond capacity.”
“I can’t see anyone else checking in,” said our valet at the first of our Kauai stops. The resort was operating at 25% capacity. Occupancy was going to, effectively, zero over the next week. The resort’s 300-strong staff was reduced to a handful. The fate of the rest? Unemployment insurance for the foreseeable future.
After the curfew was put in place, officials closed helicopter and boat tours. I believe my family was on the last boat tour of the Na Pali coast before the halt. The only reason our tour wasn’t canceled was it was just us—a group of seven, including the two pontoon boat operators.
For anyone unfamiliar with the Na Pali coast, go back to the opening island scene of the first Jurassic Park film. The green knife-edge peaks rising 4,000 feet from the Pacific are where Steven Spielberg chose to set his adventure epic.
Our boat operators weren’t allowed—by virtue of state park closings—to land on any beaches, so we had to content ourselves with spinner dolphins, a baby humpback whale, and mammoth sea caves carved out by the Pacific surf.
Our boat operators—two women born around the time my wife and I started dating—also said unemployment benefits were next. “At least I don’t have a family to take care of,” added the captain. Both women were what is best described as fairly chill about the whole situation.
Chill wasn’t an uncommon reaction to pending economic fallout. The pain from a looming shutdown of a massive portion of Hawaii’s economy—tourism—was met with relative equanimity. The reasons for such a reaction, as best I could tell, were twofold: an awareness of native vulnerability, and a strong sense of ohana, the Hawaiian word for family.
Measles, for instance, wiped out half the native Hawaiian population in the 19th century. Devastating epidemics are still remembered on the islands today. In fact, we were treated to a Hawaii protest on Saturday with native Hawaiians asking us to “go home now” to “protect our elders” and reminding us that “Aloha also means goodbye.” The protest was peaceful and, in friendly Hawaii fashion, the protesters literally said “please.”
The mandated 14-day visitor quarantine, and not the protests, is what shut tourism, sending people home. It won’t be easy for the islands. Roughly 20% of Hawaiian jobs are directly, or indirectly, tied to tourism. That number probably understates the impact. Tourism is the economic engine of the state. Hawaii’s population is about 1.4 million. About 10 million people visit the state each year.
Everyone knows pain is coming. The question “How’s business,” was consistently answered “Slow,” whether it was at a local shaved-ice outlet or one of the few stores still open to pedal flip-flops and sunscreen. Slow was an understatement. “Crickets,” as my teens would say, was more like it. Nothing was going on by the end of the vacation.
Fear, of course, was also expressed by some businesses—mainly by local retailers worried about an existential crisis. Restaurants appeared to be in better shape, with the bulk of the pain felt by hourly employees. Groceries were still doing brisk business.
Overall, there was an absence of vitriol for the governor or local government. The vast majority of those I spoke with supported the moves. Some vitriol, in fact, was reserved for not acting faster. There was more concern about the health of elders than the health of the economy.
That’s the attitude which can be a good model for the rest of the country.
Hawaii, which became the 50th state only about 60 years ago, still has a very different culture from the mainland. There is a recognition by all age groups: Ohana requires sacrifice. There is also a serene belief that things will be better down the road.
Optimism in trying times is another good lesson of all for those of us who spend all our time worrying about stock markets and the global economy. Unemployment is going to spike, in Hawaii and on the mainland. And it will take a shared effort at all levels of society and government to recover. But things will be better down the road.
What about the Hawaiian stocks? Hawaiian Airlines’ parent company, Hawaiian Holdings (ticker: HA), is down about 62% year to date. Bank of Hawaii (BOH) is off about 41%. Both declines are worse than the drops of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500. What’s more, Hawaiian municipal bonds have dropped about 5% in recent weeks. They still yield less than 2%. No one, it appears, expects the state to run into trouble.
As for the virus: There were about 70 cases on the islands as of Tuesday evening, local time. when we returned home. There are about 115 cases as of Saturday evening, up about 15 cases over the past day. Growth in the number of cases has remained slow in recent days. It isn’t yet a trend, or victory, but it’s good news.
Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of a local school teacher. She is Barbara Sarbin, not Barbara Sarban.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
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