Founded by Hawaii's most experienced hurricane retrofit specialistHawaii Hurricane Ready was founded by Gerry Peters, who has been working on hurricane protection for Hawaii homes since Hurricane Iwa in 1982. After Hurricane Iniki destroyed much of Kauai in 1992 and made the inadequacy of Hawaii's existing building standards undeniable, Gerry founded HPS Construction Services in 1993 and spent the next three decades building it into Hawaii's most experienced hurricane retrofit operation.
Over those years at HPS, Gerry and his teams performed more than 3,000 hurricane protection installations on Oahu — installing more than 600,000 individual hurricane clips, ties, and connectors. The work spans every major construction type on the island: plantation-era single-wall, post-war double-wall, midcentury tract, modern custom homes, post-and-pier, slab-on-grade, and condominium projects. There is probably no person alive who has personally overseen more hurricane retrofits on Hawaii homes than Gerry has.
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TESTIMONIALS
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"The workers did a great job on our hurricane clip installation. We are very pleased. So glad our brother-in-law recommended Gerry."
Arlene O. — Hawaii Kai "Gerry, Your guys came today and THEY DID AWESOME. They worked so so so hard. We are very happy with the retrofit, thank you for getting this done before hurricane season."
Jessica Zahn — Mililani |
"As a retired Marine, I have to say I've been extremely impressed with the professionalism and friendliness Gerry's crew brought to our hurricane retrofit project."
Mr. & Mrs. M.J. — Pearl City "Thank you for the hurricane protection work and especially the easily deployable, soft straps with anchors for our photovoltaic roof top panels. HHR – you guys are awesome!"
Mitchell and Joanne Lau — Kailua |
"Work was performed in a timely manner and the folks on the project were friendly and professional. I highly recommend Gerry's team for hurricane protection on Oahu."
Kailua Homeowner |
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Gerry was also content producer and live on-air co-host of Fix It Fridays,
the long-running home improvement call-in show on Salem Broadcasting's Mike Buck Show in Honolulu, from 2009 through 2022 — 13 years of weekly conversations with Hawaii homeowners about every imaginable aspect of taking care of a home in the islands. |
Trust the Experts
Hurricane retrofit work is not standard construction—it is specialized structural engineering work that directly impacts your home's safety, insurance eligibility, and long-term resilience. Many general or unlicensed contractors lack the experience, technical knowledge, and certifications required to install systems that meet Hawaii's insurance and engineering standards.Before comparing prices, insist on a true apples-to-apples comparison that includes connector specifications, corrosion protection, insurance certification, warranties, and documented scope of work.The lowest bid can become the most expensive mistake if the installation fails to qualify for insurance discounts or perform when a storm arrives. With over 30 years of experience and thousands of completed projects, we believe protecting your family's largest investment is too important to entrust to inexperienced contractors.
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Why HHR existsHPS Construction Services is winding down after more than 30 years. Hawaii Hurricane Ready is the next chapter — a program focused entirely on hurricane protection for Oahu homes, structured as education and advisory rather than as a general construction company.
The reasoning is simple. Hurricane protection done right needs two things: deep specialist knowledge of how Hawaii homes actually fail in storms, and a licensed contractor to perform the installation work to code. By separating those two functions — HHR provides the specialist hurricane knowledge, Kore Construction provides the licensed installation — Oahu homeowners get both, cleanly, without compromise on either side.
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Our Simpson Strong-Tie relationship
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The engineered hurricane connectors used in every HHR-coordinated installation come from Simpson Strong-Tie, the worldwide leader in engineered structural connectors. Gerry Peters has worked with Simpson Strong-Tie products for more than four decades. Simpson's hurricane connector systems — including connectors specifically designed for Hawaii construction applications — are what HHR recommends and what Kore Construction installs. |
What we've learned about protecting Hawaii homes
A few things after 40+ years of this work:
Most Hawaii homeowners are under-protected and don't know it. Newer-than-1994 Oahu homes have some hurricane clips, which leads people to assume they're fully covered. They mostly aren't — code minimums are exactly that, minimums, and the specific geometry of many Hawaii homes creates failure points that aren't fully addressed even in current construction.
Insurance discounts make the math work for most people. Hurricane retrofits shouldn't be a luxury upgrade. Between the wind mitigation insurance savings and the substantial reduction in catastrophic loss risk, hurricane clip installation pays for itself for most Oahu homeowners.
This is specialist work. Generic contractors installing hurricane clips without understanding Hawaii's specific load paths and construction types is how homeowners end up thinking they're protected when they're not. The point of HHR is to make sure that doesn't happen on your home.
Most Hawaii homeowners are under-protected and don't know it. Newer-than-1994 Oahu homes have some hurricane clips, which leads people to assume they're fully covered. They mostly aren't — code minimums are exactly that, minimums, and the specific geometry of many Hawaii homes creates failure points that aren't fully addressed even in current construction.
Insurance discounts make the math work for most people. Hurricane retrofits shouldn't be a luxury upgrade. Between the wind mitigation insurance savings and the substantial reduction in catastrophic loss risk, hurricane clip installation pays for itself for most Oahu homeowners.
This is specialist work. Generic contractors installing hurricane clips without understanding Hawaii's specific load paths and construction types is how homeowners end up thinking they're protected when they're not. The point of HHR is to make sure that doesn't happen on your home.
