HAWAI'I KAI — The parents of two young children said they plan to spend most of their time upstairs in their Lalea townhouse until officials figure out what to do about a hillside that let loose a 2 1/2-ton boulder that crashed into their fence and came within 10 feet of their first-floor living room Monday night.

The boulder landed a few hundred yards away from where two boulders the size of Dumpsters crashed into vehicles parked in the same Lalea townhouse complex on Thanksgiving Day 2002, causing the evacuation of 26 homes.

Catherine Ball held her 13-month-old daughter, Emma, yesterday and pointed to the hillside where the 4-foot by 4-foot rock rumbled down a rain-soaked hillside, busted up a concrete retaining wall, punched a hole in a road and cracked open their fence as her family slept.

"All of us heard the last, final crash," Ball said. "It sounded like someone crashing into our garage."

The Balls have owned their townhouse for nearly five years and did not have to evacuate in 2002 because the previous rockfalls occurred farther makai in the 290-unit complex.

Yesterday, Ball said her family has no immediate plans to leave but would probably stay out of the downstairs rooms.

"We'll just hang out upstairs," she said, "until we figure things out."

The latest falling boulder comes after two similar-size ones, plus one estimated at 10 tons, smashed into three O'ahu homes during the first storm of the season on Nov. 4.

One of them smashed through a bedroom wall in Palolo Valley and landed on the bed of a 14-year-old girl who had woken up just moments before.

Hawai'i has become one of the hot spots in the nation for the business of preventing rockfall dangers, and state, local and federal officials plan to spend at least $14 million in the next two years to have private contractors reduce the risk.

The amount of money is nearly as much as the $17.1 million that the state has spent since 2003, when officials first aggressively began addressing the problem.

After the Thanksgiving Day 2002 slide in Hawai'i Kai, Castle & Cooke, which developed Lalea, and Kamehameha Schools, which owns the hillside above the complex, spent $3 million to clear the "west slope" area of loose boulders and shore it up with wire mesh and a catchment basin.

After the 11 months of work were finished and residents moved back home, the two organizations were supposed to perform similar work on the adjacent "north slope" area where the boulder let loose Monday night, said Philip S. Nerney, the attorney for the Association of Apartment Owners of Lalea at Hawai'i Kai.

Nerney stood next to the boulder that fell Monday night and said, "Approximately a year ago we were finally notified by Kamehameha Schools, Castle & Cooke and another party that they were prepared to follow up and take some action. That process apparently remains under study.

"We've been concerned about the amount of time this process is taking. We've communicated that concern repeatedly. We have specifically warned against this type of potential event and have not been satisfied with the pace of activity and look forward to this event being a catalyst for immediate action."

Two employees from Geolabs Inc. studied the hillside yesterday but the company said it would defer any comment to its client, Castle & Cooke.

Attorney Lennes N. Omuro said Castle & Cooke was "taking this incident seriously. Life and health and safety issues are extremely important to Castle & Cooke."

Kamehameha Schools spokesman Kekoa Paulsen said the estate is aware of the rockslide and is evaluating the situation.

Joe Ornellas, Lalea's site manager, was awakened by a police officer Monday night who said another boulder had fallen at the townhouse complex.

"It's a pebble compared to the others," Ornellas said as he stood next to the boulder. "The ones that fell before were four times this size."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.