The Swindells aren't the only ones concerned. Many of their neighbors in the Kahelelani subdivision, just below Castle Hills, share the same fear, but for years they have been unable to resolve the problem, which they say started when Castle Hills and Po'okela Street were built in the 1980s.

"I blame this on poor planning, poor development and poor inspection," Lyle Swindell said.

The situation has led to a handful of lawsuits against the state and frustrated residents who have tried for nearly two decades to get satisfactory flood control measures.

Next week, Kahelelani residents will ask the Kane'ohe Neighborhood Board for assistance. They want to get to the root of the problem, determine what went wrong and use that information to get government action to prevent future flooding.

The board is an advisory panel and can only request that the city or state agencies take action. The board can also make financing requests for capital improvement projects, but even those are subject to City Council approval.

However, Kahelelani residents say they hope the board can help.

The request for help is one of many that the community has made since Castle Hills was being built, Swindell said. Kahelelani residents had said that grading in the new subdivision would cause flooding in their subdivision.

Solutions to mitigate flooding concerns were put forth and agreed upon but never implemented, homeowners said.

Even after the 1996 flood and the settlement of some lawsuits with the state, including the neighbor whose back yard was washed away, the problem wasn't resolved to residents' satisfaction. One of the settlements called for the state to line the stream bed but that was never done, Swindell said.

City spokeswoman Carol Costa said Po'okela Street up to the Castle Hills subdivision is state owned and within the subdivision is privately owned.

"The state is responsible for proposing a solution to the drainage problem," Costa said. "The city will continue to work with the state to seek a resolution to this matter."

The state Department of Transportation, which built Po'okela Street, didn't respond to a request for comment.

Kahelelani is a 36-year-old community made up of mostly single-walled homes with a mixture of retirees and young families.

The Swindells' back yard overlooks a meandering stream known as the west branch of Kapunahala Stream. About 60 feet upstream from their home is a 20-foot-wide concrete collection basin under Po'okela Street that funnels water from the mountain, Hope Chapel Kaneohe, the Castle Hills subdivision and surrounding land into the stream branch. The water flows into a natural stream to a 4-foot-by-6-foot concrete culvert about 200 feet away.

The neighbors say the state built the 20-foot-wide collection basin and the city owns the concrete culvert.

Katherine Swindell said it's easy to see that problems will occur when torrential rains send water gushing down the 20-foot-wide basin to the 4-foot-wide culvert. The stream swells and water backs up, flooding neighbors' yards, she said.

Kane'ohe Neighborhood Board member Wendell Lum said he believes the collection basin and Castle Hills project should have obtained an Army Corps of Engineers permit because they are in a wetland. He wants to determine if that was done.

The corps could also be called upon to help resolve the flooding problems, Lum said, adding that the city and state seem to be fighting over who is responsible.

Kyle Nakamoto, a Kahelelani resident, said the original lands of the Castle Hills subdivision were lower than his subdivision so there was never a flooding problem because most of the water flowed away from Kahelelani homes and toward Likelike Highway. The developer of Castle Hills filled the land, which is now five feet or more higher than his place, and in doing so diverted the natural flow, he said.

Nakamoto would like to see a water-flow study done to determine if the existing drain through the stream branch can handle all the new flow. He and his neighbors also would like a secondary bypass drain built, a project that was once in the city budget but never acted upon, he said.

The 1996 flood not only damaged homes and took thousands of cubic yards of a neighbor's property, but nearly led to the drowning of an elderly woman, Nakamoto said.

"We don't want to see that happen again," he said.