March 26, 2026 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

Hawaii Daily News Read

Thursday, March 26, 2026

March 26, 2026 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 5:32 PM :: 159 Views

Prince Kuhio's Fight to Americanize Hawaii

Just Like Lahaina: Honolulu Officials Held Off On Evacuations As North Shore Flooded

CB: … By the time emergency management officials told people it was time to evacuate in Waialua and Haleʻiwa, some residents had already been swimming for their lives…. Haleʻiwa was not under an evacuation order until Friday morning even as heavy rains flooded the area overnight….

(Just like Lahaina. The ‘Command Center’ didn’t know the town was flooded until the next day. They weren’t listening to 911 calls.)

emergency officials were flatfooted in coming up with a response. They shrugged off rising water levels at the stream that served as their best indicator that flooding would be worse than expected, putting them hours behind in warning the public even as streets filled with feet of water. …

For almost three hours after the 11 p.m. flash flood warning was issued, city officials didn’t send another alert, leaving residents in the dark as many started to escape in rapidly rising waters. By the time city officials issued their next flash flood warning at 1:52 a.m., people had already been swimming for their lives. ..

The severity of the flooding still wasn’t sinking in at the Emergency Operations Center. For several hours, the city’s response continued to lack urgency. Around midnight, Collins said officials remained focused on water levels in reservoirs, particularly Wahiawā and in Nuʻuanu. If the dams failed, they could kill thousands….

Between 12:30 and 1 a.m., John Sivigny’s neighbors on Waialua Beach Road were calling each other to share what they were witnessing. One neighbor already had water in her first-floor house. At Sivigny’s, the water had gone up about 2.5 feet in three hours. It was now just about three inches below his steps, right at the base of his red front door. …

Levels at the stream near Otake Camp were climbing. They had already reached 32 feet by 12:15 a.m. Forty five minutes later, they had gone up to 34.93 feet – the last transmission before the gauge stopped sending data….

On Waialua Beach Road, Heather Nakahara called 911 at about 1:30 a.m. to ask for help as water quickly rose waist-deep in her bedroom. Emergency responders, the dispatcher told her, couldn’t reach her. The road was already impassable. Don’t go outside, they said.

Nakahara ended up trapped in her closet, hoping neither her loved ones nor her pets would die. She and her husband weren’t rescued for another seven hours. …

(CLUE: Just like Lahaina, Emergency Command Center not listening to 911 calls.)

In the emergency operations center, officials began discussing sending an evacuation order just before another alert went to cellphones at 2:22 a.m. telling residents that emergency vehicles could be delayed due to flooding.

Collins, the emergency management director, told Civil Beat that officials opted to still hold off because they feared that sending an evacuation notice then would have sent people into the path of floodwater. Instead, they continued monitoring the situation.

The weather service, though, did not hold back, sending an alert at 3:16 in the morning to all cellphones, telling residents to “SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!”….

(CLUE: The only reason an evac order was ever given was the illusion that the Wahiawa Dam was about to ‘fail’—which it was not. Flooding caused by localized rain did not make an impression on the emergency center.)

Big Q: Were the official storm and flood warnings/alerts sufficient recently? | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

read … Flying Blind: Honolulu Officials Held Off On Evacuations As North Shore Flooded - Honolulu Civil Beat

As Waialua Flooded, Neighbors Saved Each Other--City nowhere to be seen

CB: … The crowd in the auditorium at Waialua Elementary School grumbled as Honolulu’s mayor told the residents assembled on Tuesday night what his administration had been doing during and after the flood.

The fact that there were no fatalities, Blangiardi said, was a credit to the first responders.

“I’m talking about people who are in dangerous situations, who could have died,” he said. “We talk about a rescue, it’s at that level.”

In the back rows, men in mud-stained clothes with work boots caked in red clay began to shift, muttering about how it had been locals in their backhoes out rescuing people long before first responders arrived on the scene.

Someone in the crowd interrupted to ask why the city didn’t have a plan for clearing all the debris that piled up during the storm. “What would you do?” Blangiardi shot back. “I’ll tell you what we did do.”

The room erupted.

“Don’t point fingers at us, what we did. We did everything. So don’t ask us what we did,” Waialua resident Mana Merrill called out from the back, his voice echoing over the rest. “You guys only came in today. We’ve been here four days, five days. If it wasn’t for the Ritas, the Souzas, the Brandon Rice’s – people would have died.”

The crowd applauded their neighbors and others who had stepped into the void to help.

“If they never come in with their loaders, people would have died,” Merrill said. “I’m telling you right now.”

Similar frustrations flared over the course of the more than two-hour meeting. The community, still reeling from frantic escapes and coming to terms with the level of destruction, had little patience. Why, several people asked, hadn’t there been more warnings? …

HNN: North Shore flood frustrations boil over as residents demand answers | Hawaii News Now

read … Flying Blind: Honolulu Officials Held Off On Evacuations As North Shore Flooded - Honolulu Civil Beat

EMS loses ambulance in flood, rescues family on North Shore

SA: … about 1 a.m. Friday, when paramedic William Batalon and emergency medical technician Alexis De Costa were responding to a 911 call for a vehicle collision. It was one among more than 30 simultaneous calls for rescue and help after midnight, according to Dr. Jim Ireland, director of Honolulu Department of Emergency Services

They were driving along Kamehameha Highway near Chun’s Reef, heading toward Waimea Bay, when the call was canceled due to there being no apparent injuries.

They stopped the ambulance, and that’s when they were suddenly overcome by floodwaters, which stalled the ambulance, with water rising rapidly past the doors. Two police officers at the scene helped Batalon and De Costa climb out of the side windows…

The good news is that the Emergency Medical Services first responders happened to be in the right place at the right time to save a family of seven, including young children, from their home as it was being inundated.

“I make my 40th year in EMS this year, my 40th year anniversary,” said Ireland. “And I can tell you that we see miracles in EMS — and this was a miracle.”

As the first responders were wading through waist- to chest-deep waters, someone ran out, screaming for help, saying they had children trapped inside. Ireland calls it a moment of “divine providence.”

The first responders got to the house, maybe about 100 yards away, and each rescued a child, all estimated to be under 7 years old, Ireland said.

There were three adults and four children, and in the pitch dark and raging floodwaters, all got to higher ground, where a police vehicle was parked.

The family got inside the police car to warm up. Moments later, they heard a loud crash and the house collapsed, he said. He heard it all via live radio.

A high-water rescue vehicle in the area was eventually able to reach the family and take the party of seven to The Queen’s Medical Center Wahiawa for evaluation. They were in stable condition….

the city also lost its Waialua EMS base behind the Waialua fire station, a loss worth possibly a half-million dollars. Additionally, Batalon and De Costa lost their personal vehicles that night.

For the moment, the Salvation Army has offered to let EMS use Camp Homelani as a base…

read … EMS loses ambulance in flood, rescues family on North Shore | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

The climate change dodge

ASD: … Hawai‘i lawmakers are advancing a bill that would allow insurers to sue fossil fuel companies when they have to make big payouts for disasters allegedly caused by climate change. What they really aim to do, however, is shield local government and powerful interests from accountability for any role they themselves may have played….

read … Pipikaula Corner: The climate change dodge

What's next for the Wahiawā Dam?

ASD: … Two weeks ago, the Board of Land and Natural Resources was scheduled to officially take over management of the dam and associated land parcels, but the board meeting was postponed due to the first Kona low storm of the month. On Friday, after the second Kona low emphasized the dam’s weaknesses, the Board will finally decide whether to approve the transaction.

Should the Board approve the acquisition, the roughly 126 acres of land will fall under the care of the DLNR’s Division of State Parks, while repairs to the dam and spillway will be carried out by the state Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity, Andrew Laurence, DLNR’s Communications Director, told Aloha State Daily.

Once improvements to the dam are complete, the land will be transferred again, this time to the state Agribusiness Development Corporation, a division of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism….

(BETTER IDEA: Let Dole continue to own the dam and give them $20M to upgrade it to modern standards. The state’s record on dam ownership is very poor.)

SA: Kokua Line: What other dams were risky during Kona lows? | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

SA: State moving forward with rehab of hazardous Wahiawa Dam | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

CB: Hawaiʻi Is On Track To Obtain And Fix Dam That (didn’t) Almost Fail - Honolulu Civil Beat

read … What's next for the Wahiawā Dam?

Failing To Heed The Lessons Of The 2004 Mānoa Flood

CB: … In the years that followed, officials proposed the Ala Wai Flood Risk Management Project, formally released in 2017, as a long-promised system meant to protect the watershed through detention basins, channel improvements, and floodwalls. It was supposed to be a solution.

The original design relied heavily on upstream detention basins to capture stormwater and reduce downstream flooding, an approach that, like many large-scale solutions, was met with predictable, self-interested, and short-sighted public opposition.

Case and point: In February 2023, the Mānoa Neighborhood Board, my neighborhood board, passed a resolution opposing any proposed plan that included a detention basin at Mānoa Valley District Park, citing concerns about uncertain flood reduction benefits, neighborhood impacts from a 6-foot berm or excavation, and the availability of an alternative plan that did not require a basin at the park.

When it was later announced at a neighborhood board meeting that the Army Corps of Engineers had decided against the use of detention basins, the news was met with thunderous applause over WebEx, with board members openly rejoicing that their persistence in opposing the basins was precisely why neighborhood boards exist. In that moment, there was celebration but no acknowledgment of what had just been lost: any meaningful upstream flood protection.

I … was one of only two people who spoke up to warn what this meant. The warning did not resonate.

On Monday, 22 years after the 2004 flood, it happened again. The same stream. The same streets. The same consequences….

read … Failing To Heed The Lessons Of The 2004 Mānoa Flood - Honolulu Civil Beat

Honolulu City Council passes Bill 6 to ease apartment zoning rules

PBN: … The Honolulu City Council on Wednesday passed a bill to adjust the city’s land use ordinance to remove barriers to housing projects and increase development of residential apartment buildings on Oahu by reducing the minimum lot sizes and adjusting floor-area ratios and building area standards in apartment-zoned districts.

Bill 6 focuses on changes within apartment and apartment mixed-use districts. While thousands of properties on Oahu are zoned for apartment or apartment mixed-use development, current standards make redevelopment infeasible for many of the them.

The legislation reduces the minimum lot area requirement to 5,000 square feet, from a minimum of 7,500 square feet. It also reduces the minimum lot depth to 60 feet, from 70 feet. The floor area ratio and building area standards will also be adjusted.

Bill 6 will now be sent to Mayor Rick Blangiardi, who may sign it into law or veto it….

read … Honolulu City Council passes Bill 6 to ease apartment zoning rules - Pacific Business News

Lava zones insurance measure is gutted by state Senate committee

HTH: … The state Senate’s Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection voted unanimously Tuesday to heavily amend a bill originally meant to help pay for property insurance for Puna and Ka‘u residents living in high-risk lava zones.

The committee moved to alter House Bill 20 by replacing its “substantive language” with a directive to the state’s Legislative Reference Bureau to conduct a study about the bill’s practicality and implications….

read … Lava zones insurance measure is gutted by state Senate committee - Hawaii Tribune-Herald

DoE Wants Failed ‘Distance Learning’ for Flooded Schools

CB: … So far, Konawaena High School on the Big Island is the only campus to have transitioned to online learning this quarter because of damage to its campus. The school has not yet announced when it will reopen for in-person learning. Some parents and lawmakers predict the campus won’t open until next school year. …

read … Hawaiʻi Schools, Already In Disrepair, Hit Hard By Intense Storms - Honolulu Civil Beat

After years of homelessness, schizophrenic finally gets the medical help he needs only because of a screw-up and a cover-up

CB: … In 2011, Spriestersbach was homeless and sleeping at Kawananakoa Middle School in Punchbowl when an officer woke him up and asked for his name. Spriestersbach would not give a first name, his lawsuit says, and gave only his grandfather’s last name: Castleberry.

The officer found a 2009 warrant for Thomas Castleberry and arrested Spriestersbach for the outstanding warrant.

Spriestersbach told the officer he was not Thomas Castleberry, the complaint says, but the officer arrested him anyway. Spriestersbach didn’t show up to his court date, and the court later dropped the bench warrant for him. But the mistaken identity followed him.

In 2015, an HPD officer approached Spriestersbach after hours in ʻAʻala Park, where he had been sleeping. He initially refused to give his name to that officer but eventually did so, the complaint says. Thomas Castleberry was listed as an alias, and there was a warrant out for his arrest, the complaint says, but because the officers took Spriestersbach’s fingerprints this time, they confirmed he was not Castleberry.

Still, the complaint says, they did not update the police department’s records.

On the day of 2017 arrest, Spriestersbach was waiting for food outside Safe Haven in Chinatown. He fell asleep on the sidewalk while waiting in line, his complaint says, and an HPD officer woke him up and arrested him for Casteberry’s outstanding warrant.

Spriestersbach spent four months at Oʻahu Community Correctional Center and more than two years at the Hawaiʻi State Hospital before being released on Jan. 17, 2020. Police officers, public defenders and health workers had had the chance to correct the mistake that led to Spriesterbach’s detention and custody, according to his complaint, but nobody did so. …

(REALITY: After years of homelessness, schizophrenic finally gets the medical help he needs only because of a screw-up and a cover-up. After getting the anti-schizo meds at the State Hospital, he was able to get off the streets and now lives on his sister’s farm in Vermont. He is getting a $975K settlement for this life-saving ‘travesty.’ Maybe we should also apologize, fly him back to Honolulu and give him a piece of cardboard to sleep on?)

read … Man Institutionalized Due To Mistaken Identity Will Get $975K Settlement - Honolulu Civil Beat

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