A downed gate post smolders in an Olowalu field on June 28. The fire forced the temporary closure of Honoapiilani Highway and sent drivers scrambling to reach Lahaina through Kahakuloa village instead, prompting a traffic jam and raising safety concerns among the Kahakuloa community. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos
When a large brush fire in Olowalu shut down Honoapiilani Highway last month, cars started piling up on the one-lane road winding through Kahakuloa village.
“Once they are coming through, there is no other way to turn around, to reverse, to do anything,” born-and-raised Kahakuloa resident Kalena Ho’opi’i said. “For two hours cars was in one position, never moved forward or backwards. At some point there was times where we even had opened up a lot of our yards for the cars so we can … get the traffic flowing.”
The fire and traffic jam dredged up the longtime frustrations of Kahakuloa residents who’ve seen emergencies turn their only access into a clogged artery of drivers who aren’t used to the perilous road.
“This last incident with the traffic and the fire on the pali was one of multiple traffic incidents that we had to deal with,” Ho’opi’i told Maui County Council members on Wednesday. “The main concern for us is mostly, had there been an emergency for our keiki, our kupuna or ourselves, how would we get that assistance?”
The brush fire broke out on the afternoon of June 27, forcing the closure of Honoapiilani Highway between the Lahaina Bypass and Luawai Street in Olowalu. The road reopened later that evening after the fire was 50 percent contained but had to close down again from the bypass to Maalaea due to a large tree burning near the roadway. That evening, the county put out a notification that Kahekili Highway was open to Lahaina-bound traffic at Waihee School.
Horses graze at sunrise in Kahakuloa in 2015. The remote community, accessible by a narrow, cliffside road, was inundated with traffic last month when a fire closed down Honoapiilani Highway. Residents have since raised concerns over the county’s handling of the emergency and why it didn’t shut down the road to Kahakuloa.
Ho’opi’i said her grandma was on her way home when she was stopped by police at Waihee. After confirming she was a resident of Kahakuloa, she was able to get through but noticed that several other cars behind her who didn’t appear to be residents of the area passed through as well.
Maui resident Tiare Lawrence said she had friends in Kahakuloa asking for help because they didn’t know where to turn during the emergency.
“When I was a kid, no tourist really drove out to Kahakuloa,” Lawrence said. “It was always like locals, and now with Yelp and all these geotagging of all these sites, it’s just crazy the amount of traffic going in and out of Kahakuloa, which to me is very dangerous considering their road. I believe during road closures on the pali that without a doubt, Kahakuloa road should be closed and only residents allowed through, for many reasons, more specifically public safety and access to resources to the villagers is most important to me.”
Ho’opi’i and Lawrence were speaking to the council’s Disaster, Resilience, International Affairs and Planning Committee, which met Wednesday to discuss how the county can better provide public information during incidents that isolate rural areas, especially after “we received many, many complaints from the residents in Kahakuloa,” said Council Member Tamara Paltin, who chairs the committee and holds the West Maui residency seat.
Maui County Communications Director Mahina Martin said that the county heard residents’ concerns and plans to address them. Martin said incidents and the severity of impacts have increased over the years due to climate change but also due to Maui County’s growing population and rising tourism putting pressure on its roads and resources.
It used to be mostly locals many, many decades ago who would make that decision point of, do we run over to Kahakuloa way?” Martin told the committee. “And now with the influx of visitors and the increase in our population, those decision points are being done by literally a whole lot of people and just converging on every outlet to get in or out of an impacted and isolated area.”
Maui Police Department Chief John Pelletier said that during the fire, officers in the Lahaina district were busy shutting down the road, helping to fight the fire and doing regular calls for service.
“Could we have shut it down on the back side to Kahakuloa? When I ask what we did right, what we did wrong, how can we get better, OK, that’s an area where we need to improve on,” Pelletier told the committee. “But I didn’t have the cops. So here’s how we get better.”
Pelletier explained that the county has a Community Emergency Response Team program that prepares people to help in disasters. The department is planning to train the volunteers next month in traffic safety “so that they can actually help assist to shut these things down, to be a force multiplier.”
“I’d rather the cops go out there and do public safety and police things,” Pelletier said. “Cause if CERT’s shutting down the road, it allows the officers to do what they need to. Cause something bad is happening for that to be occurring, and we need to get our cops back in battery and getting out there to fighting the crime.”
Council Member Tom Cook, who’s directed traffic for construction sites in the past, pointed out the struggle in trying to corral traffic when roads close down.
“It amazes me how aggressive and how uncooperative people tend to be when you’re out there in a safety vest with a hard hat and a sign trying to direct traffic,” Cook said. “And I think public education is one of the things not only to enable the departments, fire, police and volunteers, but to somehow educate the public that when people are directing traffic, to cooperate and acknowledge it’s dangerous.”
Recently several county agencies met to discuss coordination during emergencies, and Martin said more talks are ahead, including on better public notifications “and making better use or greater use of not just traditional media but social media as well.” During the last few incidents, the county communications office has been tracking and trying to understand “where the public moves to quickly for information,” including social media sites that the public has come to rely on.
She was supportive of council members’ suggestions to possibly air pre-recordings on radio stations to let people know where to turn in emergencies or to talk with rental car companies to provide information on emergency resources to visitors.
Martin said residents’ abilities to make decisions during emergencies “require public information, so delivering that falls on us, and ensuring that we can do that well enough and understanding where we can do that so that it reaches them.”
“Forward looking, we have our work cut out for us. I want to be very clear about that,” Martin said. “There’s not going to be a simple solution to it, and yet there’s a dire need for attention on it. We fully recognize that there’s stronger coordination that needs to be done internally between Maui Police Department, Maui Fire Department, our own emergency management agency under their guidance once there is a declared emergency incident.”
* Managing Editor Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.
Horses graze at sunrise in Kahakuloa in 2015. The remote community, accessible by a narrow, cliffside road, was inundated with traffic last month when a fire closed down Honoapiilani Highway. Residents have since raised concerns over the county’s handling of the emergency and why it didn’t shut down the road to Kahakuloa. 
A downed gate post smolders in an Olowalu field on June 28. The fire forced the temporary closure of Honoapiilani Highway and sent drivers scrambling to reach Lahaina through Kahakuloa village instead, prompting a traffic jam and raising safety concerns among the Kahakuloa community. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photosToday's breaking news and more in your inbox
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