On Tuesday morning, just a few hours after the catastrophic failure of Kaloko Reservoir on Kaua'i, traffic at our Web site, honoluluadvertiser.com, climbed dramatically and stayed high through the day as people checked for updates and new information.

Providing frequent updates online was an integral part of our newsroom's effort in covering this story on Tuesday, but our staff also mobilized to visually explain what happened for both the print and online editions. and to tell the very human story of the people affected by the disaster.

Our goal for online was to have constant updates, putting everything we knew online as soon as we knew it. The first day, we posted 10 updates.

The main breaking news story we posted on Tuesday got the highest number of hits, and an analysis of traffic to the site showed a consistently high interest in the story through the day. A number of sites, including Google and Yahoo, linked to our site, and that contributed greatly to the rise in traffic.

That online component included a message board to help friends and family connect with each other, and the first messages were posted by early afternoon on Tuesday.

We also opened a gallery of staff and reader photos and partnered with KGMB-9 to provide video of the devastation.

Of all the components of the Kaua'i coverage, breaking news stories have been the biggest draw on the Web site, followed by the photo galleries.

That traffic to the Web site shows people were interested in the latest developments and in seeing for themselves what had happened.

We, too, wanted a strong visual component to help explain the story for both online and print readers so we could show what happened, from the dam breach to the destruction of houses.

Reporter Jan TenBruggencate, who is our Kaua'i bureau chief, and Advertiser photographer Bruce Asato flew over the area on the first available helicopter because it was the best way to see and understand the two-mile path of destruction.

But for that complete explanation, we also wanted ground-level photos, with closeups of the destruction.

We collected photos all day from various sources, including Civil Defense, freelancers and near the end of the day, from Advertiser reporter Peter Boylan, who hiked in with TenBruggencate's digital camera and shot the ground images we eventually published in the paper.

We wanted to get photos of the breached reservoirs online as soon as possible, and we posted them in the early afternoon, once Asato got off his helicopter flight.

On Wednesday the second day of the disaster, we continued to update the stories as news broke, but the focus shifted to investigations of how this could have happened and who would be held accountable.

Through the week, reporters continued to make online updates a priority.

At the same time, we wanted to portray the human element.

Reporters approached their stories by trying to be the eyes and ears of readers. Reporters know that to fully grasp the scope of a disaster they need to immerse themselves into it. That way, they can hope to try to understand it from the standpoint of those who know the missing people and those coping with flood damage.

At the same time, as officials and residents begin to try to find answers, our coverage, too, will look at how this happened.

Reach Anne Harpham at aharpham@honoluluadvertiser.com.