The Honolulu City Council and community members are calling on the City and County of Honolulu to improve its efforts to prevent, predict and respond to natural disasters.
The council is holding several informational briefings this week following the flooding from the recent Kona low storms.
On Tuesday, the council focused on the need to regularly clear debris out of streams and waterways, and to have better tools to anticipate emergencies.
The city says it’s hoping to collaborate with private and public entities to better maintain streams. Some have also asked for scheduled stream cleaning.
Racquel Achiu lives on Oʻahu’s North Shore, where residents are still recovering from the heavy flooding last month, and was one of a few members of the community who testified at the briefing.
She said stream maintenance has been an issue for years, and the community said it could help mitigate the impacts of excessive rain.
“Prevention and preparation are what come to the forefront, and we have been stomping our feet about our streams and our ditches for many, many years,” Achiu said. “We've had you guys come out many times. So I'm hoping that … we're able to reinstate a regular maintenance schedule of streams and ditches in the summer and both pre- and post-winter and as needed.”
In 2021, the North Shore was also flooded because of torrential rains. Many of the same people who were impacted then were also hit during the recent floods.
Before that, in 2004 flooding caused $80 million in damage to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and $34 million in damage to residential areas in 1987. Debris in waterways has been described as contributing to the damage caused by those floods.
Councilmember Radiant Cordero said the city used to have a stream maintenance schedule.
The city’s Department of Facility Maintenance is responsible for about 170 city-owned streams, rivers and drainage canals. DFM periodically does stream maintenance work, and posts work dates online.
Gene Albano, the department’s director and chief engineer, said more frequent maintenance is a priority going forward.
But one challenge he noted is that the ownership and responsibility of streams changes along their paths. That means city, state and even private entities need to collaborate for comprehensive maintenance.
“Perhaps this might be an opportunity to see how we cross-collaborate with all the various sectors, whether it's the state, private owners, homeowners, commercial owners,” Albano said.
The council also discussed how it could monitor potential natural disasters.
The city’s Department of Emergency Management said it has $1 million from the federal Urban Area Security Initiative to develop software for early emergency detection.
The software will use artificial intelligence to analyze data, which could come from existing rain and flood gauges, traffic cameras and other monitoring systems in the city.
“We absolutely want to take advantage of all the current infrastructure that's there — not just recreate a whole new infrastructure, but let's see what we got in place and how we can use those to feed our system full of information,” said DEM Director Randall Collins.
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