Kauai Radio Station Channels Appeals, Aid : Aftermath: KQNG provides a lifeline for islanders and worried relatives from around the world.

As news of the devastating toll of Hurricane Iniki reached the mainland, Bruce Hoffman in Boston tried frantically to reach his father and other relatives in the south shore community of Hanapepe.

After days of futility, Hoffman was desperate. He finally reached police in Kauai and was promptly told to call radio station KQNG. When he got through, Hoffman found himself on the air broadcasting an appeal for anyone with information on his father.

“I was surprised to find myself on the radio,” said Hoffman, who was born in Kauai. “But I guess this was the only means of communication they had.”

Indeed, ever since getting back on the air, the tiny radio station--which calls itself ‘KONG’ after a nearby mountain range that resembles a gorilla--has been the lifeline for islanders starving for news.

KQNG was knocked off the air by Friday’s hurricane. Within a day, workers switched the station to a generator. Since then the station has been the community bulletin board for government notices, updates on relief efforts, health warnings, damage reports, family reunions and offers of kokua , or help.

For those in automobiles or who have radios powered by batteries or generators, the station has provided a crucial communications link on an island where 5,000 downed telephone lines, sporadic phone service, little running water and no electricity have made life miserable.

There have been tearful calls from outsiders--including one woman calling from Germany seeking news of her son. The woman gave the name of her son, an employee at a Princeville hotel, and told disc jockey Ron Wiley that she was distraught after failing to reach him.

“I know who that is,” Wiley told her. “He’s OK.”

Overjoyed, the woman started weeping. “You know I have cried ever since I saw on TV that the hurricane hit there,” she said. “So, Norman is fine? Nothing is wrong? Are you sure that he is fine.”

Wiley laughed. “Yes. Yes. Yes. He’s OK.” Then he gently chided her “You must be a mother!”

With a mixture of humor, Kauian pride and stern advice, Wiley and the other broadcasters have shared air time with virtually anyone who walks into the station, which looks just like another storefront on a side street in Lihue.

What listeners--including thousands of stranded tourists--have heard reflects the casual lifestyle and folksiness of the people who inhabit the island.

During the last few days, employers have stepped up to the microphone to tell workers to report to their jobs. One accountant drove to the station to announce that she had the company payroll and would leave her address at the station for workers to stop by her home and pick up their paychecks.

With telephone service gradually restored, others have begun calling with tips. A woman who lives next to a stream called to give directions so people could come and bathe and draw water to wash clothes. A caller asked her daughters to meet at a certain place so she could give them some cash. And one caller warned listeners that someone had stolen lobster tails and filet mignons from a local restaurant and might try to sell them to unsuspecting buyers.

A bank manager also called the station to announce that his branch was open to take loan applications to help property owners who had lost their homes. “I may take one out myself,” he said, then added, “I just don’t know if I have any collateral left.”

For some, the attempts at laughter have been bleak, and at one point, Wiley apologized to listeners who might have been offended by the gallows humor.

Telephone company officials also have tempered their praise for the station with a note of caution to callers who they believe are straining an already overtaxed system.

“It’s hard to discourage them, but we have been discouraging them,” said Carrie Hyun, a spokeswoman for GTE Hawaiian Telephone. “Our primary effort has to be to assist relief efforts.”

Nevertheless, it appears that the station--one of three on the island, which also has two newspapers--has enjoyed a wide audience, and officials have recognized its reach.

On Wednesday, a U.S. Army representative went on the air to announce the location of its water treatment facilities. County officials have been on the air to notify the public of dump sites and disaster assistance centers. And doctors have called to remind patients to take their medicine and to reassure them in the aftermath of the hurricane.

It has been a trying period for the radio station employees. Many had their homes severely damaged and most rode out Iniki under their desks or huddled inside the station.

“There was no communication on the island--no radios, no TV , no newspaper, just ham radios,” said Rodney Sanchez, the 30-year-old station owner, and “we needed to get word out quickly . . . and help us resume normal business.”

Sanchez, whose family has lived in Kauai for five generations, has owned KQNG for the last year. He said that like other businesses on Kauai, he has not made any money since the hurricane--giving out free advertising time and paying for the gasoline that runs the station’s generator.

In December, the station was also instrumental in providing communications when disastrous floods, which killed four people, struck the towns of Anahola, Moloaa and Kapaa.

But Lee Cataluna, the station’s news director, said the struggle to recover from Hurricane Iniki has been more difficult.

Cataluna and KQNG managed to help one of their colleagues salvage his wedding. Ed Kanoi, the station’s program director, had planned to be married on the weekend the hurricane struck. He was married several days later at the radio station by a minister who responded to a broadcast plea for someone to officiate at the wedding.

As for Bruce Hoffman in Boston, he returned from a business meeting Wednesday to find a message from his 58-year-old father.

A joyful Hoffman said his father’s house was “unlivable and almost destroyed” but that the family was unhurt.

“I am really relieved,” Hoffman said. “My father heard me on the radio and had been trying to call me. I was really surprised. I didn’t believe it would happen. Now I’m happy.”