"That is a big safety hazard, particularly in the higher floors, and they should fix it," said Debra Taamu, an upper-story resident who has lived in the complex for nearly 30 years.

"People here know about it, but they don't complain. They're used to it," Taamu said.

Federal officials called the disabled fire protection system a "serious health and safety violation" and gave Kuhio Park Terrace failing marks in its most recent overall project assessment.

Stephanie Aveiro, executive director of the state's public housing agency, the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawai'i, said a firefighting consultant has been hired to recommend solutions, adding that each of the 572 residential units is equipped with a smoke detector and fire extinguisher.

The state was notified in 2002 of 14 "major" fire code violations at the high-rise, directing they should be "corrected immediately," said Honolulu Fire Department Fire Prevention Bureau Battalion Chief Lloyd Rogers.

The state "never responded" to the notification, Rogers said.

Federal officials made note of the fire-safety problem in March.

Rogers said Aveiro, who took charge of the housing agency last December as part of Gov. Linda Lingle's new administration, met with Fire Prevention Bureau personnel within the past three months and on their recommendation hired fire safety engineer Samuel Dannaway.

The Honolulu Fire Code requires that there be a workable fire alarm box beside each of three exits on every floor of Kuhio Park Terrace, with functioning bells or horns to notify residents of an emergency, according to Rogers. On virtually every floor, some or all of the fire alarms have been broken or disabled.

And that's just one of "a long laundry list of major violations," Rogers said.

Other high-rises in the city "may have two or three things wrong, but nothing like this," he said.

Vandalism of the fire protection system has for decades been a chronic problem at Kuhio Park Terrace, according to Lui Faleafine, an official with Urban Real Estate Co., the private firm that manages the complex and 16 other public housing projects for the state.

Faleafine used to be the complex's on-site manager through Urban Real Estate. His younger brother Robert now fills that role.

"People use the fire hoses to rappel down the side of the building," Robert Faleafine said.

"They take the copper out of the hose nozzles and sell it," he said.

When the fire alarm system was operable, residents or visitors continually triggered false alarms "at all hours, one, two, three o'clock in the morning," Lui Faleafine said.

"It was driving the residents crazy, and we got all kinds of complaints from people in the neighborhood," he said.

The Faleafine brothers said management and security personnel are on duty 24 hours a day, ready to respond at the first sign of a fire.

"There's never been a fire-related death since it was built in 1965," Lui Faleafine said.

New residents go through a three-hour orientation that includes a demonstration of how to use the fire extinguisher in their unit, Robert Faleafine said. All the extinguishers are checked at least once a year, he added.

And repair of the fire alarm system and other fire code violations "are the responsibility of the state, not Urban Real Estate," Lui Faleafine said.

"We notify them of the problems. We can't spend a penny to fix anything. It's up to them."

Water for the complex's fire protection comes through a "wet-standpipe" system, an internal set of pipes connected to the building's main water supply. Cabinets, enclosing the pipes on each floor of the high-rise, are supposed to be equipped with hoses. In the event of fire, the cabinet is opened, the hose pulled out, and the water is turned on.

Aveiro said fire department personnel "know that when they respond to a fire emergency (at Kuhio Park Terrace), they are to bring their own hoses and their own 'keys' to the wet-standpipe system. Should they not have them, those items are readily available from the 24-hour management assistance crew."

But some of the fire cabinets on floors are not just locked shut, they are screwed shut and can't be opened even with keys, the Fire Department noted in its June and July 2002 inspections.

Cabinets on the second and third floors of one building were missing interior hoses and had been sealed shut with metal screws when an Advertiser reporter and photographer visited the housing project this month.

Faleafine explained that there had been instances of vandals pulling open the cabinets and turning on the water, flooding floorways. So some of the cabinets have been screwed shut, he said.

Taamu, president of the residents association, couldn't remember precisely the last time the fire protection system actually worked. "But people abused it and abused and abused it. They slowly destroyed it," she said.

The Advertiser made several attempts to contact other residents about the inoperable fire protection system, but many would not comment and others did not return telephone calls.

Fire Department inspectors in June and July 2002 gave the state a long list of major fire code violations at Kuhio Park Terrace, including the broken fire alarms and missing fire hoses.

Other problems cited by fire inspectors included:

• A disabled two-way fire department communications system. "The phone jacks on the floor are damaged and/or missing."
• Inoperable trash chute doors, which are supposed to seal shut to prevent spreading of trash fires up through the buildings.
• Non-working exit lights and missing exit signs.
• Damaged fireproof glass in exit doors.

Battalion Chief Rogers said equipping residential units with fire extinguishers helps to reduce the fire hazard "if there's someone home at the time, if the fire is small and if the occupant knows how to use the extinguisher."

Missing fire alarms are a "serious safety threat" to residents, he said.

And missing or disabled fire hoses "would hamper firefighter operations and endanger not just residents but the firefighters that go there," Rogers said.

Rogers said that in the two years since the state was notified of the fire code violation, the Fire Department has responded to 15 calls inside the high-rises and another 23 calls for fires outside the buildings.

The local office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development referred questions about fire safety issues to Washington, D.C., HUD spokeswoman Donna Wong. Wong said the agency is finalizing a "memo of understanding" with the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawai'i that will detail necessary repairs as well as establish deadlines for compliance.

The housing corporation has been planning for years to raze Kuhio Park Terrace and replace it with low- and mid-rise public housing for low-income residents, in accordance with a nationwide HUD program called Hope VI. But federal money necessary for the plan hasn't been available.

Wong said the state applied in 1996 for $35 million in Hope VI money to tear down and rebuild public housing at Kuhio Park Terrace but the application was denied in favor of other programs elsewhere in the country. Two other applications since then were also turned down, although the federal government did grant money for the $12 million Community Resource Center that opened at the public housing complex two years ago.

According to state housing corporation data, Kuhio Park Terrace and the adjacent, 134-unit Kuhio Homes house nearly 20 percent of all federal public housing tenants in Hawai'i.

The complex has the highest level of poverty in the state, with 68 percent of the families there living below poverty level, according to the 2000 Census.

And, the housing corporation adds that residents in the project "are economically isolated and face educational, linguistic and cultural barriers."

Forty-five percent of the residents over age 25 did not graduate from high school and the unemployment rate was 23 percent, compared to 6 percent for the rest of Honolulu, said the housing corporation, quoting census data.

In 2000, more than half the residents were Samoan, 14 percent were Native Hawaiian and 19 percent were in a census category called "Other Asian/Pacific," which the housing agency said is mostly recent immigrants from Micronesia.

Nearly half of the Kuhio Park Terrace residents have limited English language skills. Among the languages spoken in residents' homes are Chuukese, Marshallese, Vietnamese, Laotion, Samoan and English.