An oversized load on a truck trailer tore down a 30-foot, 5-ton section of a pedestrian overpass in Aiea, just a half-hour before dozens of schoolchildren would have been walking home on it.
"First we heard a boom, and we all looked out the window and we said, ‘Oh no! It’s the bridge,’ and we said, ‘How are we supposed to get home now?’" said Ella Tovi, 11, a sixth-grader who lives in Halawa.
Ella is one of many of the 50 or so sixth-graders at Aiea Elementary School who are not entitled to any school bus service and take the overpass on the Moanalua Freeway Aiea offramp, thus avoiding a busy and dangerous section of offramps, intersections and a highway, Principal Kate O’Malley said. "I’m just so happy it didn’t happen at 12:30 p.m.," when school lets out every day this week.
A forklift on a lowboy trailer, being hauled by a Tibbitts Trucking LLC dump truck, struck the overpass at noon. The walkway is just above the Aiea offramp from the Moanalua Freeway and adjacent to Aiea Elementary School, police said.
The height of the forklift on the trailer apparently surpassed the 15-foot-6-inch height of the overpass, but Department of Transportation spokeswoman Caroline Sluyter could not say by how much.
A DOT official on the scene said the forklift’s "mast" was extended and struck the overpass.
The long concrete section of the overpass tore off cleanly, landing fairly intact.
It fell upside down, landing between the truck and the trailer, Sluyter said. "Luckily the driver was not injured."
She said the overpass was built in three separate pieces, which is why an entire section broke off rather than just a small piece of it.
"The forklift kind of lifted up that chunk of bridge, and then it came down," she said.
Crews had to saw off the pedestrian railings to load it onto a trailer for removal.
Police closed both the Aiea and the Pearl City offramps, resulting in traffic backing up for miles along westbound freeways, and snarling traffic on Aiea surface streets.
Police reopened both offramps at about 4:25 p.m. during rush-hour traffic, Sluyter said.
She said the decision was made to reopen both offramps at the same time to avoid confusion.
Sluyter said Tibbitts did not have a permit for the truck to carry an oversized load on this roadway, and could be held responsible for the damage.
"Any time a truck carries an oversized load, they need to file a permit," she said, including what is on the load and where it is going, which is to ensure that the loads are not too big to fit under all the overpasses along the route.
"Typically motorists would be responsible for damages to highways and highway signs," she said.
Tibbitts Trucking could not be reached, and messages could not be left.
The pedestrian overpass is also used by many who park in the neighborhood and cross it to attend University of Hawaii football games at Aloha Stadium, police Capt. Keith Lima said.
Pedestrians will have to take Aiea Access Road, but "this way is much safer," he said, especially for students.
O’Malley offered a "big thanks" to Gomes Bus, whose buses brought home the children Tuesday who normally walk on the overpass.
"Gomes Bus will provide bus service to the Halawa Housing area for all students indefinitely," said O’Malley, who was told that the repair work would take two to four months. "It’s scary to walk along the edge of an eight-lane highway across the stadium."
Sluyter said it would likely take months to repair.
Tita Pulu-Masaniai, 12, a sixth-grader, said, "I’m not walking on it anymore, even though it gets fixed. I’d rather walk all the way around."
O’Malley said a few years ago, new rules that were implemented eliminated free or reduced-fee bus service for low-income students living within a certain radius from the school.
"A bunch of our children who live in Halawa Housing fall within that new radius (and) are not entitled to any school bus," and "most of our sixth-graders are not allowed to ride the bus unless they pay."
An accident on H-1 freeway on Sept. 5, 2006, damaged an Aiea overpass and backed up traffic for hours in the Ewa direction.
A military truck hit the underpass, and engineers determined the overpass was unsafe. Repairs cost $500,000. The military picked up the tab.
