Today, as everyone heads back to daily routines after the Easter holiday, those drivers heading Ewa onto the airport viaduct will see a reminder of the traffic mess of Thursday afternoon: signs of a broken concrete barrier.

Yes, it was a mess when a truck driver couldn’t negotiate the turn and dropped his load onto the eastbound lanes below. And it was a heavy cargo: counterweights used to stabilize construction crane operations.

Traffic was snarled for hours when the freeway was closed in both directions. But they also will be reminded how lucky it was that nobody was seriously hurt.

Candidates line up for U.S. House

The more candidates there are, the fewer votes needed to win. Mathematically, anyway.

There now are five declared Democrats in the race for the U.S. House seat representing urban Honolulu: state Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, state Reps. Kaniela Ing and Beth Fukumoto, Lt. Gov. Douglas Chin and City Council Chairman Ernie Martin. Each new entrant — the latest was Fukumoto on Thursday — makes the race that much more intriguing, both in how it affects dynamics during the campaign and in the eventual vote tally.

Crowded fields, though, are nothing new when it comes to statewide races. Back in 2006, for example, 10 Democrats vied for the U.S. House seat representing rural Oahu and neighbor islands.