'The water kept coming, over and over again'

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

Yesterday, Troy Montayre, who lives at the top of Ahuahu Place in Upper Kalihi Valley, vividly described the scene when he feared his whole neighborhood might slide into oblivion on a wave of relentless rains.

Friends and family of Peter Cabrera attempt to clear away mud and debris that became wedged under the family minivan in Kalihi. His wife, Sharon, said, "We felt like the earth was moving under our feet." Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Peter Cabrera, who lives two doors down, was screaming at his wife, Sharon, and their 9-year-old daughter, Lauren, to quickly get out of the house.

"We felt like the earth was moving under our feet," said Sharon Cabrera, who remembers water coming into the second floor of their home. "It was like rolling rapids back there. Everything started sliding and rolling down the hill, and my husband, who was outside, was yelling, 'Get out of the house!' "

Moments before, according to the Cabreras, a storm drain behind the house blew out under the strain. A torrent of water, rocks, debris, vehicles and even a boat slip-sliding down the hill followed, much of it ending up in what had been the lawn of Susan Aguda, who lives at the bottom of Ahuahu Place on Kalihi Street.

"We've lived here 18 years and only now this happens," said Aguda yesterday as she eyed the mountain of muck that replaced the grass and plants that had been there. "Two cars came all the way down the hill and landed in our yard. I was scared. I was crying.

"And, oh my God — the water kept coming, over and over again."

Aguda bent down and gestured to where she said the rushing water had come to the top of her front steps. She said she spent the morning trying to clean up slime, rocks and chunks of wood from the lower level of her house.

Emiliano Tropia, a city and county road crew supervisor, said his workers expected to haul away more than a dozen truck loads of debris in and around Ahuahu Place by day's end yesterday. And that was only what they scraped up from the roadways. They weren't touching the tons of mess that ended up inside neighborhood homes and garages.

Bad as things were for Aguda and her family, matters were worse for the family of Tauama and Sophia Timoti, who live below and to the side of Aguda in a one-story, three-bedroom house on Kalihi Street.

"It was like a river down here," said Fautua Fautua, who was visiting his sister, Sophia, when all hell broke loose. "It was worse. It was like standing in the middle of the ocean."

Like others in the neighborhood, Fautua remembers how the water rushed down the hillside in giant waves, every five minutes or so. It was like a nightmare, he said.

Fautua said the home the Timotis rent was unlivable after so much earth and water had washed through it so many times. Everything was ruined. When the Red Cross offered to put the family up in a hotel for three nights, they gratefully accepted, he said.

"They'll be staying there again tonight and tomorrow, until we have time to clean up everything," Fautua said.

Reach Will Hoover at 525-8038 or whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.