Posted on: Friday, November 5, 2004

EDITORIAL
Manoa Valley needs flood control project

The extensive damage caused by raging floodwaters on the University of Hawai'i campus at Manoa is simply heartbreaking.

The rainfall that caused the flood is not especially unusual. It's unthinkable to leave a university that is striving for world-class status vulnerable to such floods. The state and the city must embark on a major flood-control project to ensure that it never happens again.

The weekend overflow of Manoa Stream saw a wall of water sweep through the campus, trapping students as well as destroying irreplaceable scientific research projects, damaging more than 30 buildings and waterlogging valuable records, archives and computer files.

It rained very hard in Manoa Valley on Saturday — almost 10 inches in 24 hours, and 1.29 inches in 15 minutes — but the amount of rainfall was in no way unprecedented. Rising waters backed up at the Woodlawn Avenue bridge and turned right, flowing down streets, through parking lots, homes, Noelani and Mid-Pacific schools and the UH campus. It swept away several cars in the process.

Flooding had occurred at the same bridge in 1994.

Experts will need to evaluate how much more capacity the Manoa Stream floodway requires, and whether accumulation of debris contributed to the flooding — although the streambed in the Woodlawn area had been cleaned by volunteers the very day of the flood.

There's no time to waste.