Hurricane Relief Pours Into Kauai : Storm: Death toll rises to four as injuries climb past 100. About 8,000 are homeless. Damage on Hawaiian Islands includes homes, hotels, crops and utilities.

As the whining wind and rattling rain of Hurricane Iniki faded into a nightmare memory, the stunned residents of Kauai toted up their losses Sunday, and National Guard planes and a Navy amphibious assault ship came to their rescue with ice, tents, cots, food, equipment and fresh water.

The death toll climbed by one to a total of four, including one person reported to have died of a heart attack. The list of injured grew to more than 100. Most suffered cuts and broken bones and were treated at an island hospital. In addition, relief officials estimated that Iniki left as many as 8,000 residents of Kauai without homes.

More than 10,000 houses sustained major damage, said Linda Sacia of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. She said that most hotels were severely damaged, the Kauai water system failed, sugar cane fields were flattened, the macadamia nut crop was destroyed, a third of the power poles on the island were down and there were few working phones.

“Our hearts go out to the people,” President Bush said at Camp David, Md., before leaving to campaign in California. “We pledge to stand by them.” The day before, he had declared most of Hawaii a disaster area, making it eligible for federal aid. He said he was told that 30% of Kauai’s buildings were destroyed. Bush said that he has “no plans right now” to visit Hawaii.

Officials got an initial look at Niihau, a tiny island about 25 miles southwest of Kauai, also hit by the hurricane. It is privately owned and home to 300 people whose ancestry can be traced to the first inhabitants of Hawaii. “I don’t want to say there was no damage,” said Kim Whitman, a FEMA regional director, “but there was no evidence of damage.”

He and other officials flew over Niihau in a helicopter. “We were flying at a fairly low range and went slowly over the island several times,” Whitman said. The aircraft hovered over ranches and homes. “They looked OK. Everyone assumed it would get ugly, but density begets damage, and there isn’t much density on the island.

“The consensus was that somehow Niihau had magically escaped damage.”

From Honolulu, a stream of military ships and planes ferried supplies to Kauai throughout the day. The Belleau Wood, an amphibious assault ship, loaded up 50,000 ready-to-eat meals, 100 tents, 1,600 blankets and cots, 10 mobile kitchens, hundreds of portable toilets and equipment to clear debris and repair roads.

State officials had not yet requested the material, but Pentagon officials said they wanted to be ready. “The ball is in the state’s court,” said Lt. Col. Kerry Gershaneck, a spokesman at the Pentagon in Washington. “We’re there ready to serve, but it’s the state’s call, and we have liaison officers right there with them.”

Hawaii Air National Guard C-130 transport planes flew from Hickam Air Force Base on Oahu every 30 minutes across an 80-mile channel to Kauai with food, water, generators to restore power and microwave equipment to replace telephone systems destroyed by the storm. Some planes carried troops.

Col. Edward Correa, commanding officer of the relief effort, said he expects the troops to stay for several weeks. “At first I thought we were looking at a couple of days,” he said. “But now that I’ve seen this, I know it’s going to take longer. It’s amazing more people weren’t hurt.”

Correa and other officials turned facilities at the Navy’s Barking Sands Pacific Missile Range on Kauai into a central storehouse for supplies. They planned to anchor the Belleau Wood just offshore as a floating warehouse.

From the ship and the missile range, material and equipment will be ferried to five distribution points on Kauai. They are at National Guard armories in Lihue, Hanalei, Kapaa, Hanapepe and Kekaha.

Among the items being sent:

* Two small military-owned desalination plants capable of generating 15,000 gallons of fresh water from the ocean each day.

* A mobile telephone system with its own generators that can be set up in a few hours. “They can land and set up a phone company that can bounce signals off the satellites,” said Whitman, the FEMA regional director.

* Tons of bulk food.

* 200,000 pounds of ice.

* Large equipment, including tractors, scoop loaders, dump trucks, water tanker trucks and fuel trucks.

* Thick orange and blue plastic sheeting to cover roofs.

A. Roy Kite, a FEMA coordinating officer for disaster relief, said: “From our estimations, there are 10,000 homes out of the 21,000 homes on Kauai with at least partial roof damage.

“The idea is to get as many of the houses covered as possible so people can live in them while awaiting further federal assistance.”

On their return flights from Kauai to Honolulu, the pilots of the National Guard C-130s offered space to tourists who wanted to leave. Hawaiian and Aloha airlines also began to take tourists off the island.

Federal officials estimated that 2,000 of about 20,000 tourists on the island had asked to leave immediately. The officials said that it would simplify their relief efforts if tourists who wanted to leave would do so.

Kite added, however, that “we don’t want to scare anybody away.”

Other federal officials were equally cautious, aware of criticism after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida and Louisiana three weeks ago. Some said at the time that the Bush Administration did not act quickly or sensitively enough.

Patricia Saiki, head of the federal Small Business Administration, said she has urged the White House to expedite applications for low-interest loans for homeowners and small businesses that qualify under Bush’s disaster declaration.

“The President wants to streamline the process,” Saiki said, “so we can handle the applications and cut checks in seven days.” She said that the SBA managed such expedited procedures in South Florida.

Wallace E. Stickney, director of FEMA, said he was deferring decisions to local officials on the distribution of relief supplies.

“We have to make sure we do not preempt their prerogatives in any way,” he said. “It is an interesting culture; it is their culture, and we need to make sure we are fitting in.”

Stickney said the federal response to the disaster is on track, and he did not expect any new criticism.

“If you practice the same thing three times in two weeks you get better at it,” Stickney said, referring to the effects of Andrew and of Typhoon Omar four days later on Guam.

Across the island of Kauai, residents joined in the first steps toward recovery.

Owners of the two Baskin Robbins stores on the island gave away ice cream. The president of the local Miller beer distributorship passed out bottled water. He said he was asked not to hand out beer freely. He said he gave away a few cases but that the big demand was for water.

Neighbors helped each other pick up debris. By midafternoon, piles of branches and splintered wood were stacked in neat heaps throughout nearly every residential neighborhood in Lihue, the principal city.

Limited phone service was restored, and stores opened for the first time since the hurricane. Residents stood in long lines to buy food.

At one small grocery in Nawiliwili, on the island’s hard-hit southern shore, owners offered discounts to grateful customers. Some eagerly broke into their groceries and ate them while they were still in the parking lot.

Edna Garcia, a sales clerk who has lived on Kauai all her life, said that she bought $80 worth of groceries for $18. “They cut the prices because it’s an emergency,” she said. “This is when you need them to help.”

Although there was no serious looting, the Associated Press said it received reports of scattered thefts at shops in upscale Poipu Beach and along the exposed southern shore.

Buildings along the beach suffered extensive damage. Steve Townsend, general manager of the Kiahuna Plantation Resort, said that the hurricane had caused $100 million in damage at the hotel. He said security was increased.

At one large furniture store in Lihue, however, winds shattered every window and tossed couches and chairs against the back wall. Dozens of passersby stopped to gape, but none went inside the unguarded building.

“We’re all doing the best we can,” county Mayor JoAnn A. Yukimura said. “Our people are working with hearts of gold to help this community, and the response has been overwhelming. There is no place I would rather be the mayor of.”

As they arrived on the island, Army and National Guard troops turned to supervising the distribution of relief supplies. By midday, the troops numbered 460.

They were joined by Salvation Army and Red Cross teams who operated shelters across the island and doled out food and water as fast as they could get it. The effort helped ease the pain of unspeakable loss.

Kazuo Yoshioka picked through the rubble of his mother’s house in Pua Loke, a subdivision of Lihue where about 90 families, mostly senior citizens, live. One lens of Yoshioka’s eyeglasses was missing, and his face was covered with deep cuts.

“It was like a tidal wave,” he said. “First the roof came off and then the wall went and then the windows blew up in my face. It all just blew up.”

His mother suffered a broken hip, and her house was almost leveled. The hurricane lifted her blue Subaru and tossed it across her yard. Timbers, 4-by-4 inches thick, cracked into splinters. Lumber fell on top of the car, crushing it.

Two doors down, Los Angeles Municipal Judge Richard S. Hanki, who was reared on Kauai and was visiting when the hurricane hit, tacked plastic sheeting over his sister-in-law’s roofless kitchen. Hanki had been in the mountains of Kauai when Iniki turned toward shore, and he rushed back to his sister-in-law’s house to be with her.

“I never thought it would be like this,” he said, pointing to a one-ton cargo container that the storm had thrown over the top of his neighbor’s house. “The next time I hear about a hurricane, I’m going to run.”

Yoshioka, Hanki and other residents of Pua Loke said no relief supplies had reached them as of midafternoon Sunday, and authorities conceded that unexpected problems had hampered some of their efforts.

Thomas O. Batey, chief administrative assistant to Kauai’s mayor, said efforts to restore running water had been set back by an extraordinary numbers of breaks in water lines. As workers tried to hook up water in some neighborhoods, they found it pouring into streets.

“We are putting our water systems back in as fast as we can,” Batey said. “The problem is that with so many leaks, we are unable to go as fast as we’d like.”

Weiss reported from Honolulu and Newton from Lihue. Times staff writers Richard E. Meyer in Los Angeles and Melissa Healy in Washington contributed to this story.

The Impact of Iniki

Hurricane Iniki hit Kauai Island directly and brushed Oahu, but high surf and winds also hit other Hawaiian islands. Here are early damage reports from civil defense officials: * Kauai: Preliminary damage estimates range from $300 million to $1 billion. At least three people died and 8,000 are homeless. All power, water and telephone service is out. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, at least 10,000 homes sustained major damage, most of island’s hotels are severely damaged, sugar cane fields are flattened and the macadamia nut crop is destroyed. No regular passenger service is expected before today from the main commercial airport.

* Oahu: At least $2.5 million in damage is estimated to 163 homes and businesses, mostly on the western coast. Some 11,000 residents and businesses were still without power Sunday. At least one person died and an unknown number are homeless.

* Island of Hawaii: More than $1.3 million in damage is estimated, including 28 damaged homes on the west Kona coast and four destroyed boats. The Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park’s visitor center was knocked off its foundation.

* Maui: Up to 15 boats were pulled off their moorings and run aground offshore from Kihei and Lahaina, on the island’s west side. No dollar estimate was available.

* Niihau Island: The tiny island 25 miles southwest of Kauai also appeared to have been hit hard by the storm, but details weren’t immediately available.