Boulder still on Nu'uanu patio
By James Gonser and Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writers
Eight weeks after a boulder tumbled down a Nu'uanu hillside, narrowly missing Rose Hamakado as she stood in her back yard, there is still a gaping hole in the side of her house and the 1 1/2-ton rock sits in the middle of her patio where it came to rest May 10.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
A canvas tarp is the only thing keeping the wind and rain out of the family's master bedroom, a room Hamakado and her husband, Bert, no longer feel safe sleeping in.
Rose Hamakado shows where the 1 1/2-ton boulder smashed the corner of her master bedroom.
Hamakado said she wishes the land above her Henry Street home where the rock originated was state-owned rather than private property because the repairs would probably be done and the rock removed, as happened in Nanakuli following a rockfall there just three days later.
Instead, she and her husband continue to negotiate with their insurance company to pay for the repairs. She has no idea when the work will get done.
"(The state) said they don't own the property so (they) don't have to move it," Hamakado said. "I wish they would take it. In (the) country they took it right away, but this is private property."
In Nanakuli, a 10-ton boulder plunged down a hillside May 13 and came to rest against a house. Within days the state moved to demolish and remove the boulder. It was determined that the Jeep-sized boulder had slipped from state land less than 30 feet away.
Since then a peaceful calm has settled over the small compound of 11 homes at 87-1428 Akowai Road in Nanakuli, but most residents — like the Hamakado family — admit to keeping a wary eye on the slopes above.
"I'm a little worried," said Louisa Funaki, one of three adults and six children who live in the house next to the one nearly struck by the boulder. Her neighbor, Kalama Herring, agreed but added, "You have to live somewhere."
These two situations illustrate the markedly different ways such cases may be handled depending on who is the responsible landowner. They also show the range of financial, legal and safety issues that can haunt individual homeowners long after the immediate danger of rockfall has passed.
"If laws could bring clarity to responsibility it would avoid having to argue these things legally," said Patrick Onishi, whose daughter, Dara Rei Onishi, was killed when a 5-ton boulder crashed through his Nu'uanu home in 2002. The Onishi home is just down the street from the Hamakados.
Onishi said that boulder was removed in about three days by his insurance company after the tragedy.
"They didn't ask any questions. They just did what they had to do and now they are coming back to the property owner to seek compensation," said Onishi, who has a wrongful death lawsuit pending against the owners of the property above their Henry Street home.
Onishi testified before the Legislature this year in favor of a bill that would have directed the state to conduct a survey of areas with potential danger of rockslides and another to require counties to enact zoning ordinances to protect against land and rock slides. Both bills died in the Senate's Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations Committee.
Deborah Ward, spokeswoman for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, said the state spent about $70,000 removing the Nanakuli boulder and securing the area.
That figure includes breaking the boulder, as well as numerous other smaller boulders on the mountain, into 1-foot rocks that were used to form a "rock blanket" 200 feet by 100 feet "to stabilize the slope and fill in any cavities on the hillside," Ward said.
"According to our engineers, all of the hazardous rocks within the state property have been removed, as directed by our consultant, and verified by our inspection engineer," she said.
However, she said state investigators concluded that some hazardous rocks still exist on private property along the ridge and they estimated that it would cost around $10,000 for the owner to remove those.
Hamakado said the only thing being done now to protect her Nu'uanu home from future rockfalls is her prayers. She would like a strong chain-link fence installed, but that would cost thousands of dollars.
"We think about it, but we are hoping the owner of the property above can help a little bit," she said. "They have more rocks up there and we don't know when they could fall."
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431 and Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.
