THE WEATHER BEAT · SEP 23

Where to get help: the Hawaii flood watch and this week's flooding

The official doors to ask for help, in order, for Hawaii ahead of the storm and for the coastal and inland flooding east of it.

By the Weather Rock September 23, 2026, 3:29 p.m. · 4 min read

GOES satellite view of the event region — The Hawaiian Islands and the convection of Tropical Depression Fifteen-E to the southeast, the same scene as the story this list accompanies. Image: NOAA GOES-West GeoColor via NASA GIBS, 2026-09-23 18:00Z.

Key points

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center's 5 a.m. Hawaii time advisory has Tropical Depression Fifteen-E forecast to approach the Big Island on Friday and Saturday as a hurricane, and NWS Honolulu put a flood watch up at 3:44 a.m. Hawaii time for the eastern islands.
This page is the list of official doors to ask for help, in the order they are usually useful, and nothing on it is a figure of ours.
Hawaii, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, Maryland and North Carolina have no state emergency management entry on the rock's standing verified list, so no state link is printed here.

Why this list, today

The rock's afternoon story is [the Big Island approach](/journal/beat/hawaii-fifteen-e-big-island-hurricane-approach-2026-09-23/). It carries the products and the numbers. This is its sister page, and it carries no weather numbers at all. It is only the list of places to ask.

Three groups of people are reading today. In Hawaii, the Honolulu forecast office's flood watch issued at 3:44 a.m. Hawaii time runs from noon today through Saturday afternoon over the Big Island, Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kahoolawe, ahead of a system the 5 a.m. advisory forecasts to arrive as a hurricane. On the mid-Atlantic coast, the week's coastal low has coastal flood warnings out at five forecast offices, including the Chesapeake shoreline at Annapolis and, with the largest numbers on the coast, Hatteras and Ocracoke. Inland, NWS Charleston in West Virginia and NWS Peachtree City in Georgia issued flash flood warnings through Wednesday afternoon over ground that had already taken rain.

If you are in any of those places, the list below is where the official help is asked for. If you are not, it keeps for the next time.

Where to ask

Apply for federal disaster aid. The federal front door. It asks for an address and tells you what federal help is available there, which is also how you learn whether your county has been declared.

211. Local referrals for any need, by call or text. The page says to call 211 and to find your local 211. No other number is on it, so no other number is quoted here.

American Red Cross, Get Help. Shelters and emergency assistance. The page has a link to find an open shelter and a link to contact your local Red Cross.

The Salvation Army. The organisation's national page. We link the root only, because its dedicated disaster address does not stay up, and a link that does not open is not a resource.

SBA disaster loans. Disaster loans for homeowners and renters as well as businesses, which is the part people miss.

Ready.gov and its flood page. Federal preparedness guidance, which is the part of this list that is useful before a storm rather than after one.

NWS flood safety. The National Weather Service's own flood safety page.

One honest note about what is missing. We do not link the FEMA disaster declarations page, because it does not open for us: it serves a bot check instead of the declarations list. The question it would answer, whether your address is covered and what you can apply for, is answered at disasterassistance.gov above.

Every link here comes from the rock's standing verified aid list. Nothing was discovered at press time, and no county office, charity or news site appears, because that is exactly how people get sent to the wrong place after a storm.

This is a summary of where to ask, not emergency information. For live warnings see weather.gov and your local officials.

The rock's live forecast for the places in this story