Efforts to clean and restore damaged areas began coalescing Wednesday, with Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell issuing an emergency declaration for Oahu while Gov. David Ige announced that the island was joining Kauai on his state-of-emergency proclamation.
Meanwhile, residents of a particularly hard-hit section of Honolulu said they’ve been warning city officials about their concern about Wailupe Stream for years.
The flash flood that blitzed through the eastern part of Oahu Friday night destroyed three homes and damaged 163 others, according to an assessment done by the American Red Cross Hawaii Chapter.
The estimate does not include damage to farms and other businesses in Hawaii Kai, Waimanalo and elsewhere.
Caldwell, at a news conference with Ige and area Council members, said his emergency declaration allows the city to offer more help for affected residents.
Among the help: Property tax breaks for affected homeowners, waiver of building permit fees as well as tipping fees at the landfill, and additional crews to help pick up accumulated mud and other debris that residents place along sidewalks, Caldwell said.
After the news conference on Aina Haina’s heavily hit Papai Street, a refuse truck began picking up beds, sofas and other debris from the area’s sidewalks. Another truck will return today, and there will be added crews when those East Honolulu areas get their regularly scheduled monthly bulky pickup next week, he said.
The city will open two help centers staffed by government agencies and nonprofit groups to assist affected residents — from noon to 8 p.m. Tuesday and April 26 at Koko Head District Park, and during the same times Monday and Wednesday at Waimanalo
District Park.
Caldwell said the centers are
being opened next week because additional storms are being forecast for the end of this week.
Two roll-off refuse containers placed at the Hawaii Kai kiss-and-ride parking lot and at Kawaikui Beach Park at the bottom of
Hawaii Loa Ridge earlier this week will be joined by two additional bins today.
The state emergency proclamation makes the city eligible for federal reimbursement for up to roughly $7.4 million in repairs to storm drains, streams and other flood channel facilities damaged
in the storm.
At a City Council Budget
Committee meeting Wednesday morning, two residents of Papai Street said they did not believe
the city had done sufficient
maintenance on Wailupe Stream, which overflowed and was the
primary source of flooding in that neighborhood.
Meymo Rego said that for decades, the streambed was cleared with a backhoe two to three times a year — until about 10 years ago when city officials began telling her the lack of staff and equipment meant “we had to wait in line.”
On Friday night, “when the
coconut trees came in and barricaded that bridge (just upstream from her house), everything backed up,” Rego said. “I have an 8-foot retaining wall … in three minutes, we were under water.”
Other residents who spoke to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Wednesday also said the city could have done a better job dredging the streambed, which has increased in height as sediment accumulated.
Ross Sasamura, director of the Department of Facility Maintenance, told committee members that because the stream has a natural bed and not a concrete lining, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs to approve the use of motorized equipment necessary to dredge the stream. “We’re still working on getting that
developed.”
That leaves crews to do the work manually and “right now, our department is roughly between
30 to 40 percent vacant,” he said. “That presents a problem.”
At the afternoon news conference, Sasamura said cleaning and maintenance that city crews perform on a regular basis was sufficient to sustain most flows. ‘The issue here that we’re facing was one of a heavier amount of flow than what was able to be carried by the drainage structure that’s here.”
The 1987 New Year’s Eve flood that hit the same area resulted in the construction of new boulder basins in the area. “In my opinion, those projects that were completed actually averted more serious damage that could have occurred,” Sasamura said.
Caldwell said his officials have advised that increasing stream capacity in the Aina Haina-Kuliouou area would require condemning a number of homes on both sides of the canal “because it’s a very dense area here — people live right up to the edge of streams and canals.”
The situation will only get worse as a result of climate change, the mayor said. “It’s a discussion we have to have but it’s not an easy answer to (the) question.”
