Floods close roads on Hawaiian island of Kauai
USATODAY.com
By Jan Ten Bruggencate and Suzanne Roig, Honolulu Advertiser
NAWILIWILI, Hawaii — An island-wide New Year's Day downpour on Kauai caused flooding in every island community, closing roads, causing landslides, backing up cesspools and rendering many parts of the island impassable.
No one was injured and the rain had ended by Sunday with both Sunday and Monday forecast to stay dry.
Steady rain on Saturday also soaked Oahu, where Honolulu is located, but not enough to cause significant problems.
The Kauai deluge spawned a series of vast sinkholes near the lobby and main parking lot of the Kauai Marriott Resort Saturday afternoon.
Visitors Lou and Joan Wakley, of Sandy, Utah, said they believed their gold rental car was the first to fall into the Marriott sinkhole.
"I parked it back-end-in about 12:30, right about where the hole is," Lou Wakley said. The trunk of a gold-colored car was visible in the hole, nose down and almost entirely covered in mud. The sides of the sinkholes were severely undercut, and resort officials said it was too dangerous to get near enough the edge to confirm the car's ownership.
Joan Wakley, who has relatives on Kauai, was philosophical.
"We always have memorable vacations," she said.
Preliminary surveys suggested that an underground culvert had failed near the hotel lobby, and that gushing water eroded the soil under the hotel's road and parking system. One sinkhole near the resort's entrance sucked in a large banyan tree and several coconut trees. The others ate parked cars.
The rushing water damaged an underground sewer line, and some sewage was believed to be making its way to the sea with the underground storm flow. Hotel officials posted Kalapaki Beach with no-swimming signs.
Residents of several flooded areas on the island expressed concern to authorities about contaminated floodwaters, from overflowing septic systems and cesspools.
The county opened its neighborhood centers as emergency evacuation shelters in Kapa'a and Waimea, although no official evacuation was ordered. County public information officer Cyndi Ozaki said no one took advantage of the shelters.
At some Waimea Valley properties the floodwaters threatened homes only when big-tired trucks drove by in knee-deep water, creating wakes that washed against homes and other buildings. In Waimea and Waipouli, some residents were reported using boats to travel on flooded roads.
The island's belt road and many smaller roads were intermittently closed by rock slides, mudslides, cascading water flows and fallen trees and other debris. A boulder the size of a Volkswagen fell on Kuhio Highway east of the Kalihiwai Bridge.
Streams and rivers flooded all over the island. The stretch of highway between the Hanalei Bridge and Hanalei town was closed for several hours at midday. Public works officials were inspecting bridges after reports one or more could have been damaged when trees carried by floodwaters crashed into them.
Civil Defense chief Marshall said there was no damage estimate yesterday afternoon. He said repairs to erosion and sinkholes at the Marriott were expected to be the single biggest financial loss from the flooding.
On Windward Oahu, steady rain created spectacular waterfalls in valleys and off steep cliffs, but no rockfalls or mudslides were reported.
Floods close roads on Hawaiian island of Kauai
By Jan Ten Bruggencate and Suzanne Roig, Honolulu Advertiser
NAWILIWILI, Hawaii — An island-wide New Year's Day downpour on Kauai caused flooding in every island community, closing roads, causing landslides, backing up cesspools and rendering many parts of the island impassable.
No one was injured and the rain had ended by Sunday with both Sunday and Monday forecast to stay dry.
Steady rain on Saturday also soaked Oahu, where Honolulu is located, but not enough to cause significant problems.
The Kauai deluge spawned a series of vast sinkholes near the lobby and main parking lot of the Kauai Marriott Resort Saturday afternoon.
Visitors Lou and Joan Wakley, of Sandy, Utah, said they believed their gold rental car was the first to fall into the Marriott sinkhole.
"I parked it back-end-in about 12:30, right about where the hole is," Lou Wakley said. The trunk of a gold-colored car was visible in the hole, nose down and almost entirely covered in mud. The sides of the sinkholes were severely undercut, and resort officials said it was too dangerous to get near enough the edge to confirm the car's ownership.
Joan Wakley, who has relatives on Kauai, was philosophical.
"We always have memorable vacations," she said.
Preliminary surveys suggested that an underground culvert had failed near the hotel lobby, and that gushing water eroded the soil under the hotel's road and parking system. One sinkhole near the resort's entrance sucked in a large banyan tree and several coconut trees. The others ate parked cars.
The rushing water damaged an underground sewer line, and some sewage was believed to be making its way to the sea with the underground storm flow. Hotel officials posted Kalapaki Beach with no-swimming signs.
Residents of several flooded areas on the island expressed concern to authorities about contaminated floodwaters, from overflowing septic systems and cesspools.
The county opened its neighborhood centers as emergency evacuation shelters in Kapa'a and Waimea, although no official evacuation was ordered. County public information officer Cyndi Ozaki said no one took advantage of the shelters.
At some Waimea Valley properties the floodwaters threatened homes only when big-tired trucks drove by in knee-deep water, creating wakes that washed against homes and other buildings. In Waimea and Waipouli, some residents were reported using boats to travel on flooded roads.
The island's belt road and many smaller roads were intermittently closed by rock slides, mudslides, cascading water flows and fallen trees and other debris. A boulder the size of a Volkswagen fell on Kuhio Highway east of the Kalihiwai Bridge.
Streams and rivers flooded all over the island. The stretch of highway between the Hanalei Bridge and Hanalei town was closed for several hours at midday. Public works officials were inspecting bridges after reports one or more could have been damaged when trees carried by floodwaters crashed into them.
Civil Defense chief Marshall said there was no damage estimate yesterday afternoon. He said repairs to erosion and sinkholes at the Marriott were expected to be the single biggest financial loss from the flooding.
On Windward Oahu, steady rain created spectacular waterfalls in valleys and off steep cliffs, but no rockfalls or mudslides were reported.
posted by DP at 6:47 PM
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