Hawaii Is The Only State Not Seeking Federal Buyouts To Move Residents Away From Floods The FEMA program could help as the climate crisis worsens. But the public would have to know it exists and overcome outdated building codes and high property values.
In the ensuing years, the beach has drastically shrunk. The sea is now threatening to swallow Mowat’s home in Kapa‘akea on Molokai’s south shore, a structure built on Hawaiian Home Lands where her in-laws once lived. She said her family secured the lease to the homestead in the late 1930s, and five generations currently live on the six-acre property that was once used to raise cattle.
“The sand is going out. The land is being taken away. We have coconut trees in the water,” said Mowat, or Aunty Bridget as most people call her.
She wants to move inland before rising sea levels, waves and king tides destroy her home. But she needs financial assistance and government help to afford somewhere else to live. Mowat, a member of the Molokai Planning Commission and active community member, is losing hope that her threatened home will ever be bought out.
