This past weekend, Hurricane Lala skirted Hawaii's Big Island without making landfall, the closest the island has come to a direct hurricane hit in 155 years, since a Category 3 storm struck it in 1871. Flash flooding swept through communities in the island's Ka'u district, including Naalehu and Waiohinu. Hawaii Governor Josh Green reported more than 100 homes damaged or destroyed, and more than 116,000 homes and businesses lost power. Our thoughts are with everyone affected as recovery begins.
Stories like this are a reminder of something we talk about often at Homvi: disaster rarely gives much warning, and the best time to prepare is before it arrives.
It's not just a Hawaii problem
Wildfires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes. No region is immune, and no one plans to lose their home. Recovery after a disaster involves a long list of tasks: finding temporary housing, coordinating with contractors, supporting family members, and working through an insurance claim, often all at once.
A home inventory won't make that list disappear. But it can take one time-consuming task off your plate. Instead of spending hours trying to recall and document everything you owned from memory, you already have the record. That's time and energy you can put toward the parts of recovery that matter most, like your family and your home.
How Homvi helps
This is why we built Homvi. It gives you a quick and easy way to create a home inventory right from your phone, so your records are backed up, organized, and ready whenever you need them.
If you ever need to file an insurance claim, having that record already in place can be a real support. It gives you documentation to lean on instead of trying to reconstruct everything from memory, which can make the process smoother and give you back time and energy for the parts of recovery that matter most.
It's one piece of a much bigger preparedness picture, but it's a piece you can knock out in a few minutes rather than a few hours. If you've been meaning to get to it, a storm like Lala is a good nudge to do it now, while things are calm.
If you or your family have been affected by Hurricane Lala, our thoughts are with you. Recovery resources for Hawaii residents can be found through the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross.