Hawai'i got lucky with respect to hurricanes this week, dodging not one bullet, but four.

Hurricane Jova is veering safely off to the east of the Big Island and Kenneth, still far out to sea, has weakened to a tropical storm.

Hurricane Lidia, another weather system once churning toward Hawai'i, interacted with Hurricane Max and was eaten up in the process.

Max wasn't strengthened by Lidia's demise. Still more than 2,000 miles from Hilo, Hurricane Max was expected to become a tropical storm overnight and to continue to weaken.

"Things seem to be quieting down," said Derek Wroe, forecaster for the National Weather Service.

Wroe said that so far, no other tropical storms or hurricanes have lined up along the Eastern Pacific for a shot at completing the long westward trek toward the Hawaiian Islands.

"There is an area of disturbed weather about 500 miles south of Manzanillo, Mexico," he said. "It is showing some signs of improved organization and could develop within the next couple of days."

But so far, he said, the weather off Mexico doesn't even rate as a tropical depression. And it is more than 3,000 miles away.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Jova, with sustained winds of more than 115 mph, is veering north.

The center of the storm will miss the main Hawaiian Islands by about 300 miles, according to Jeff Powell of the Central Pacific Hurricane Center, and it will weaken over the next five days.

The state won't be touched by the hurricane itself, Powell said, but that doesn't mean there won't be some aftereffects.

Hawai'i could see some heavy showers in four or five days, he said. And with Jova headed into the tropical ridge — a climatological feature to the north that creates Hawai'i's trade winds — things could get a little sticky.

"So it won't be pleasant trade wind weather," he said. "But, on the bright side, we won't be hit by a hurricane."

Powell said citizen concern over the hurricanes seemed high, with well over the usual number of hits on the weather service's Central Pacific Web site, and lots of telephone calls.

"There was a lot of interest," he said. "And there should be. It isn't good to be complacent. It is good to be aware."

Many Island citizens, galvanized by video of Hurricane Katrina's destruction along the Gulf Coast, were well-stocked to weather a strike.

On the Big Island, with Hurricane Jova edging closer, Kaumana resident Kameron Toriano said his family took a quick inventory last weekend of what they had, and what they needed to be ready.

Toriano, 14, said his grandmother is a former nurse, and she reminded the family to take precautions. The family made a run to a market near their Kaumana home, mostly for spare flashlight and radio batteries.

"It wasn't big deal, because we have most of the stuff at home," Toriano said.

O'ahu residents also took precautions over the weekend, buying flashlights and batteries at City Mill and, on Saturday, clearing the shelves of water at Costco in Iwilei.

By yesterday, most residents were less worried and more prepared.

Roxanne Dowda of Kailua and her daughter, Jenilee, left Sam's Club yesterday with two shopping carts full of groceries, but that was just a routine grocery haul for feeding five adults and one infant, Dowda said, not anything special for the storm.

The mother of three and new grandmother was confident that the supplies she had on hand would have been enough.

"We are definitely prepared," she said. "We are not in a panic."

Shoppers at Daiei on Kaheka Street yesterday said they were aware the immediate danger had lifted.

"It's already turned," said James O'Cowley of Waikiki.

O'Cowley's cart was lightly scattered with blue plastic bags, as was the cart navigated by Noreen Arakawa of Palolo and her daughter, Tai.

O'Cowley and Arakawa each waved off speculation that Katrina news coverage had made hurricane preparation in Hawai'i a bigger concern.

"If we were below sea level, like New Orleans, then maybe. ..." O'Cowley said.

"It is an island," Arakawa said. "If we're gonna drown, we're gonna drown."

Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.