Highway reopens despite rockfall
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
Despite two rockfall incidents in five days and warnings that the area can be hazardous during rainfall, state officials yesterday reopened Kalaniana'ole Highway at Makapu'u Beach.
The decision meant both access routes to Waimanalo were open to welcome visitors to a weekend bash intended to boost sagging businesses.
Coming on the heels of a rockslide that sent as many as a dozen volleyball-size rocks onto the road on Thanksgiving Day, the opening meant the road was scarier than ever.
"I've driven this road all my life, and now is the first time I look up and wonder," said Wilson Ho, chairman of the Waimanalo Neighborhood Board.
But he acknowledged that the benefits of keeping the road open outweigh the risks.
"It's just necessary to go that way," he said. "I work in Hawai'i Kai and live in Waimanalo. It's the difference between getting to work in 10 minutes and getting there in an hour."
State officials apparently agreed.
The road was closed around 5:30 p.m. Thursday after rocks fell from the cliffs and landed on the highway after heavy rain, which fire officials said contributed to the rockslide.
The closure came a day after the road was reopened all day for the first time since Nov. 6, the start of three weeks of work to make the area safe from falling rocks.
Rockslides have plagued the area in recent years. Tons of rocks crashed down the cliffs and landed in the road Oct. 15, and on Sunday a 2-pound rock shattered a motorist's windshield.
After assessing the situation yesterday morning, project engineers made the decision to reopen the highway shortly after noon. Martin Okabe, district engineer for the state Department of Transportation, said it would remain open throughout the weekend, weather permitting.
The weekend forecast from the National Weather Service calls for clouds and light rain in Windward O'ahu.
A free festival is scheduled today and tomorrow at the Honolulu Polo Club field in Waimanalo to stimulate business for merchants who have suffered financial setbacks since the cliff work and all-day road closures began.
City officials and residents who organized the event worried that its purpose could be defeated if the highway remained closed all weekend.
Deciding whether to reopen the highway has presented a dilemma for state officials: Does the economic damage caused by keeping it closed offset the danger of someone getting hurt or killed by falling rocks until protective fencing can be installed?
Al Schafer of Kailua, whose windshield was shattered Sunday, has said the road should remain closed until the fence is erected.
Some Waimanalo business owners feel otherwise. During the three weeks in which one of the two routes into the area was shut down during the work day, merchants complained the disruption caused greater losses than the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
It's as if a boulder had landed on the businesses, Ho said.
"Businesses in Waimanalo have been clobbered big time," he said. There is "no choice" but to keep the road open.
Ho said the road would be safer once the fence is completed. But even that won't protect motorists from a major rockslide.
"The rocks no longer come down one by one," he said. "They come down in bunches. The project contractor, who has done this kind of work for years, has said this is the most dangerous one he's ever worked on — which scared us even more."
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.
