honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, March 27, 2006

Falling rain brings falling rocks

Advertiser Staff

A boulder tumbled down a hill Friday and smashed into a Pauoa home owned by Joseph Fasone. A year ago another boulder hit the home; both boulders fell from land Fasone said is owned by the state.

DEBORAH BOOKER | The Honolulu Advertiser

spacer spacer

The car driven by Kailua resident Linda Taylor was towed off the Pali Highway yesterday after colliding with the boulder in the foreground.

ANDREW SHIMABUKU | The Honolulu Advertiser

spacer spacer

It rained rocks yesterday.

A boulder fell from above the Pali Tunnels and clipped a car, but caused no injuries.

Several miles away, a landslide closed one lane of Kailua Road for two hours. And in Pauoa, a man surveyed the damage caused when a boulder smashed a hole in a vacant home he owns — the third boulder to fall on that property in the past four years.

Yesterday's closest call came on the Pali Highway, where a 2-by-2-foot boulder fell onto the Kailua-bound lanes just outside the Windward-side tunnel. The boulder took a chunk out of a concrete barrier before damaging the right rear wheel of a four-door Saturn driven by Kailua resident Linda Taylor.

"Somebody was looking out for me, that's all I can say," said Taylor, who did not see the boulder fall. "I mean, it could have been in front, it could have hit my windshield.

"You don't expect to have boulders flying out of the sky."

Several motorists, including Island Air pilot Charles Edwards, stopped to help her. Four teenagers pushed the boulder onto the shoulder.

In Pauoa, Joseph Fasone was trying to deal with a boulder that hit his home Friday evening. He had just fixed up the home and was planning to move in.

"This is the second time I am repairing it," he said. A year ago a boulder caused about $2,000 in damage, he said. He estimated the latest damage at more than $30,000.

He said the state owns the hillside that the boulder came from. "I don't know what they are going to do. I guess they have to put up a barrier," he said.

A 5-by-3-foot boulder and dozens of smaller rocks fell from a hillside along Kailua Road near the entrance to Kailua town shortly before 10 a.m., police said.

The incident closed one Kailua-bound lane for about two hours, but there were no injuries or property damage.