UPDATE 5/1/17 SO THE NEXT MORNING WITH NO MORE RAIN, PUBLIC WORKS IS OUT AGAIN TO CLEAR SKR, NECESSITATING CLOSURE BETWEEN KA’ONO’ULU AND OHUKAI RDS. EVEN AFTER WELL AFTER TEN AM, NORTHBOUND TRAFFIC BACKS UP AT KA’ONO’ULU AND HWY, AS VEHICLES WAIT CLEARANCE TO TURN LEFT ONTO HWY.
UPDATE 4/30/17. Now it is NOT raining, and has not rained for several hours in No Kihei. But obviously water is pouring onto Ka’ono’ulu Rd from the Kulanihakoi gulch flowing makai.
Ka’ono’ulu and SKR floods again & SKR was closed. Is this a community concern to discuss with Public Works?
#kihei 4/29/17
Shortly after 9:00 AM this morning, South Kihei Road fronting the closed Maui Lu Resort ( & what is going on with THAT?) was being reopened with shallow flooding remaining, after the hard working DPW crew brought the level down to driveable. When the deluge began about 5:00 AM in North Kihei, all nearby residents knew this would happen. The only question is how deep and how wide.
There are many reasons for this recurrence, but is there any solution short term? Long term? This is just one of many issue and concerns that will be addressed to DPW Director David Goode in a few weeks (5/16, 6:30 PM) at next month’s KCA general membership meeting at the Kihei Charter School location on Lipoa.
There seemed to more flooding along N Kihei road more quickly than usual this morning,4/29. There was a high tide around 5:30am so I’m thinking this had something to do with the situation considering we are at sea level and on wetlands (former wetlands built up). With the rising sea levels maybe we have to move mauka more.
Mahalo for contributing. Our feeling it is not maybe but just when we’ll have to move mauka
County response is always reactive and not proactive. Either they build a ponding basins (several of them) along the gulches just Mauka of Kihei or they clear the outlets when they issue the flash flood warnings.
We see them going around placing cones, lighted saw horses at common flood areas right before the heavy rains but rarely do you see a crew trenching the outlets by the ocean.
Water will find its way to the low lying areas if not given an outlet to the ocean.
Perhaps it’s time to revamp their Action plan. Imagine if there was an accident on Piilani the same time these floodings occur… Double whammy!
Mahalo for contributing James; we agree with much of what you state here. We HAVE observed some trenching and clearing some outlets before a predicted storm at times, but agree your primary point that what is necessary is going further up the mountain. We often compare this trying to stem a waterfall when standing beneath it, instead of going upstream to the source.
When humans clear cut upcounty forests, then fill in wetlands and estuaries along the shoreline, this is the result
KCA has advocated for retention & detention basis mauka of the highway for a long time, but have been met with responses that this is private land and would be “very expensive.” However in recent conversation with Councilmember Bob Carroll, he is looking at this situation to help mitigate the flow using ponds above the highway. Stay tuned.
The outlets were a lot more open before the “dune restoration” projects.Dune fences were erected that were funded by condo associations to stop the sand from blowing into their property yet had the effect of building up the sand and blocking the natural flow of the water from upcountry out to the ocean. You can see the torn up fences from this project next to the bridge
This is a highly complex situation. It took humans a long time to screw up a natural process by clear cutting upcountry forests, filling in almost all S Maui’s coastal wetlands, and then building on them, so there is no easy fix The forests held the soil & slowed the downhill water flow, & the estuary received the water from the gulches & naturally filtered & slowed the flow into the ocean. Having wide open outlets are possibly the greatest threat to our near dead coral reef system