Honolulu police, firefighters and city and private paramedics responded to a mock train derailment in East Kapolei on Saturday that led to hypothetical mass casualties.
Honolulu firefighters arrived in two Honolulu Fire Department ladder trucks and scaled ladders stretching approximately 55 feet into the air to get to the elevated guideway and then to both ends of a four-car train that theoretically derailed while slowing from 55 mph to arrive at the East Kapolei station.
The train was supposed to be traveling west from the University of Hawaii-West Oahu station with 50 passengers aboard when it ran off the tracks, leading to 24 injuries ranging from critical to minor.
Rescue firefighters followed up the ladder on the east side of the train and then lowered three mannequins, standing in as seriously injured passengers, to paramedics on the ground in a procedure known as a “rope rescue,” according to acting HFD Chief Joseph Kostiha.
As part of the drill, every hospital on Oahu was contacted Saturday to identify how many patients they could handle based on the severity of each patient’s injuries, according to Jim Ireland, director of the city’s Emergency Medical Services department.
Firefighters flew a drone above the scene, as they would in an actual disaster, to give incident commanders on the ground a bird’s-eye view of the crash site and response.
Firefighters assigned to ladder trucks are used to scaling heights, and HFD rescue crews do their work every day, Kostiha said.
But responding to rail emergencies carries the additional need to turn off power to the affected portion of the rail line, especially the dangerous “third rail.”
In its response to the simulated injuries, EMS deployed its special “ambu-bus” designed to handle mass casualties, along with city and private ambulances that would transport the most seriously injured patients, Ireland said. The retrofitted, retired city bus is capable of transporting 12 patients in litters (stretchers used in rescues) and another 12 who can be seated.
“Fortunately it’s not been used (outside of exercises),” Ireland said.
The drill was part of ongoing testing of the city’s rail system before it can be turned over to the city’s Department of Transportation Services for paid ridership, currently scheduled for early next year.
But Mayor Rick Blangiardi — the fourth Honolulu mayor to deal with the city’s rail project — also called the exercise a significant milestone in the history of the oft-criticized project that last year faced a projected $3.5 billion deficit with no plan to plug it.
Blangiardi has since frequently praised Lori Kahikina — executive director and CEO of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation — for helping to turn around the project, praise that he repeated following Saturday’s drill.
When she stepped in as interim CEO and executive director in January 2020, Kahikina was blunt in assessing HART’s financial troubles. She then undertook a series of painful cuts that included letting go of city employees and outside contractors and other reductions to control costs, such as eliminating a 1,600-stall parking garage at the Pearl Highlands station.
After being appointed HART’s permanent boss in January 2021, Kahikina also declined a $25,000 performance bonus in March 2022 that won her widespread praise and gave hope to some rail critics that reform at HART might actually be underway.
As envisioned in 2012, the rail system would span a 20-mile, 21-station route from East Kapolei to Ala Moana Center, Hawaii’s largest transit hub.
But without the money to get to Ala Moana Center, HART now plans to build only 19 stations and 18.75 miles of track that will end in Kakaako at Halekauwila and South streets, including elimination of the Pearl Highlands station garage.
Blangiardi, Kahikina and HART board Chair Colleen Hanabusa worked on the truncated route that they could afford, buoyed by a new source of funding from a new city hotel room tax aimed at tourists that was created by the state Legislature.
Still, plenty of potential problems lie ahead.
HART is undergoing testing of 144 scenarios, of which 54% have been completed.
The more complicated scenarios lie ahead, Kahikina said.
Similar simulated rail emergencies will be conducted annually after rail service begins, Kahikina said. Rail officials and first responders previously conducted two smaller exercises at the Aloha Stadium rail station as part of the testing of the system.
No more large-scale drills are planned for this year, Kahikina said.
Compared to the first two exercises, “This one is huge,” she told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
First responders were told to report to East Kapolei with their equipment but were not given details on what to expect.
Emergency vehicles responded with their lights on but no sirens, out of courtesy to neighbors and a throng of observers watching the drill that included Blangiardi, Honolulu Police Chief Arthur “Joe” Logan, other city department heads and a representative from Homeland Security.
John Nouchi, deputy director for the city’s Department of Transportation Service that will operate the rail system once it opens, thanked neighbors around the exercise who “bore the inconvenience” of road closures and traffic diversions Saturday morning.
An evaluation of the exercise will be conducted, Kahikina said.
But the first reviews from Kahikina and multiple city officials, from Blangiardi on down, were nothing but positive, including several who said the drill made them “proud” to be city employees.
“We all are on the same page,” Kostiha said.
Correction: Lori Kahikina, CEO and executive director for HART, declined a bonus of $25,000 in March. An earlier version of this story had an incorrect amount.
