Road eats car - now what? (Honolulu, Hilo: houses, employment, neighborhoods)

[Jungjohann]

Originally Posted by OpenD

No, I think first they need to do some studies.

Before any studies can be done, a local Hawaiian activist group, more than likely spearheaded by some recent mainland transplant ha'ole, will have to form a panel, in order to ascertain whether or not the damage done to the road was in actuality caused by Makua U'a nui, Peles cousin. Of course, if the panel should decide that the damage was actually caused by a Hawaiian deity, then the road will be left as is.

And now, for a weather update

uhoh

[hotzcatz]

Rumor has it there will be another pipe put in - one of those huge culvert pipes. Then concrete trucks will appear, hopefully. I've not been up there for a couple of days, though, so they could be doing anything (or not) up there. Not generally a lot of newsworthy stuff happens up in that neighborhood.

[OpenD]

Here's a different report on the original incident, a video with a brief interview with your friend Velma about the incident, and more pictures.

Massive Hawaii Sinkhole Swallows Truck (PHOTO)

[hotzcatz]

Hmm, at the end of that video, she said something about December rainfall record of 5.1 inches, I think she may have meant 5.1 feet of rain. What was the rainfall totals for last week? Did anyone keep track? I dumped out the garden cart at least three times and it was overflowing and it's about a foot deep.

I'm surprised they didn't go back out and take more pictures afterwards, the hole got a lot bigger before it was done falling in.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

Hmm, at the end of that video, she said something about December rainfall record of 5.1 inches, I think she may have meant 5.1 feet of rain. What was the rainfall totals for last week?

December wasn't even the wettest month in Hilo. That would be February with 23 inches versus 20 inches in December. The problem with December was getting it so much at one time, with Dec 29-30 clocking in with almost 9 inches of rain.

The longest stretch Hilo went in 2013 with no rain was 7 days from April 11-17.

[KauaiHiker]

I know y'all are joking, but c'mon, the Hawaii DOT does fix roads that break. 2 examples from here on Kauai, both during the big rains we had 2 years ago:

- The Kapaa bypass washed out, very similar to this incident (the flood water eroded the culvert, and the road fell into it), just a bit smaller in scope. The State DOT put down a new culvert, built forms, and filled the hole with cement. They had the whole thing reopened in about a week.

- In Kilauea, a culvert had corroded, and the flood waters again washed it out. The only difference was that this was on a 20' high embankment, so they had to build a temporary bypass and spent several months rebuilding the whole embankment.

BTW, openD, in the latest accident on Kauai, Loop Rd is uninhabited, so the closure didn't really affect anyone.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by KauaiHiker

I know y'all are joking, but c'mon, the Hawaii DOT does fix roads that break...

It's not that simple... Hawai'i DOT only fixes SOME roads that break.

Who has maintenance responsibility for roads other than designated Interstates and state highways?

This depends on the road in question, and can be confusing for some roads. In general, roads not in the state highway system are county roads. However, the state owns and maintains portions of some roads not designated as state highways, where they intersect with numbered state routes. Many other roads are also state-owned, maintained by the state Department of Transportation (not just its Highways Division, but occasionally its Airports and Harbors divisions), or the Department of Land and Natural Resources, among other state agencies.

Moreover, the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands owns some roads, but their maintenance is committed by law to the county governments. A few other roads are maintained by Federal agencies, such as the National Park Service or the Department of Defense. Also, there are many private roads open to the public, some of which are maintained by the counties, some not.

Even for some roads in the state highway system, responsibility can be ambiguous (for example, a fatal accident on Saddle Road on the Big Island, which is designated as a state route but part of which is currently owned by the county, generated lots of finger-pointing between lawyers for the state and the county about who was responsible for the problem found to have contributed to the accident, and the resulting damage award to the victim's family).

Hawaii Highways -- FAQs page 6

[KauaiHiker]

OpenD: you can't have it both ways. First you raise the issue of roads being cut and people being blocked. But when I point out that when a major road is cut, it gets fixed, you point out that small roads might not get fixed. Well yeah, if a small road gets cut, it might not be fixed quickly--but then it doesn't affect many people. Was it ever different anywhere else in the world?

[hotzcatz]

The road is being worked on, they put in another big metal culvert and are pouring concrete on top. I don't know if you'll be able to read the story without being a subscriber and logging in, but they should have the road open again sometime next week. Yay! That's much quicker than I expected.
Tribune Herald

This road, the one being fixed, is claimed by the County. However, further down the road and part of the proposed escape route (which apparently, they will clear later) are some "roads in limbo". Those are roads that exist that nobody claims as well as roads on paper that don't seem to be there anymore. The escape route road was one of the "lost" roads where it shows up on paper but you have to go digging to find it in reality.

Had this road been a "road in limbo" then more than likely it wouldn't have been fixed.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by KauaiHiker

OpenD: you can't have it both ways.

There are a lot of people on the Biggie Island, particularly in Puna, who would be happy just to have it one way.

There are now nearly as many people living in Puna as there are residents of Hilo, and they have one way in and out... Highway 130... a piece of two-lane black top that was already carrying 35,700 cars a day back in 2009. It is one of the most dangerous and accident prone pieces of highway in the state, and an accident at the key choke points can tie up traffic on both sides.

Here's an article from April's special edition of the Star-Advertiser about Hawai'i County's growing pains. It mentions that just widening the road to 4 lanes would cost at least $130 million, equal to about $3,000 per resident of Puna. But in fact that $130 mil isn't lying around anywhere, so the DOT is just fiddling about.

Highway is rife with hazards - Hawaii News - Honolulu Star-Advertiser