Don’t Get Scared, Get Prepared campaign launched by Hawaiʻi Emergency Management

“Don’t Get Scared – Get Prepared” is the tagline of a new campaign launched today by the Hawai‘i Emergency Management Agency for National Preparedness Month.

The campaign begins with the airing on television, radio and digital platforms of the first of three animated videos about hurricane preparedness.

As with the 2021 tsunami preparedness animated video, the videos will be presented in both English and the Hawaiian language, and with subtitles in Tagalog, Korean, Spanish, Japanese and other languages spoken in Hawai‘i.

The public service announcements focus on three aspects of hurricane preparedness, but provide good guidance in preparing for any major hazard that Hawai‘i might face, said Luke Meyers, administrator of the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency.

The spots address:

• Making a plan
• Stocking supplies and a “Go Kit”
• Checking on neighbors

“The themes are universal to community preparedness, whether the hazard that might be threatening Hawaiʻi’s people, property and environment is a hurricane, a tsunami, a wildfire or a volcanic eruption,” Meyers said. “Preparing before a disaster strikes gives you more control over your situation and frees up resources to help the people who need them most.”

A key message of National Preparedness Month is that preparedness is the responsibility of the whole community, including resilience planners, first responders, residents and tourists.

“We can’t control storms or other disasters whether they be natural or human-caused, but we can control what we do to prepare for them,” Meyers said.

The public service announcements use a distinctive style and color palette. One of the spots is based on interviews with Johnny Gordines, a Kaua‘i resident who sheltered at home with his wife, Theresa, when Hurricane Iniki struck the community 30 years ago. Neighbors helped clear a path from their home to the hospital, where Theresa gave birth to their daughter the morning after landfall.

“That’s what neighbors are about,” Gordines said.

“Johnny and Theresa’s story is a great example of how the aloha spirit connects our communities when they face a challenge,” said Adam Weintraub, communication director for Hawaiʻi emergency management. “It’s one of the lessons of Iniki that still holds true today.”

In addition to broadcast and digital distribution, the videos will be posted to the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency website, with different language versions linked to the appropriate pages of the agency’s Language Resource Hub. Additional versions and translations will be posted to those pages as they are completed.

The campaign was designed and produced by Honolulu media firm Hyperspective, with funding provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through its Emergency Management Performance Grant program.