Kauai residents fly off island for DMV services after fire damages county building
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – More than a month after a fire destroyed a critical county building on Kaua’i, residents are having to travel off island to get their driver’s licenses and permits.
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The blaze damaged the Kapule Building in Līhuʻe just days after Hurricane Lowell last month.
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Travis Horka’s son, Treicen, was supposed to complete his driver’s permit test days after the fire.
“At the time, they said that they just were like, ‘No, just hold off. Things should be up and running soon.’ But I had a feeling like it was a lot worse than what they anticipated originally,” Horka said.
Without any road or permit tests on Kaua’i, Horka flew with Treicen down the island chain to Hilo to take his test there instead.
“It was a little bit difficult just because you have to make sure you have everything in a row,” Horka added.
Because flights were expensive, Horka’s wife did not go with them, and had to sign an affidavit.
“You don’t want to fly up there and you’re missing one little thing and they tell you, oh, sorry, you got to come back. You know, that just ruins the whole day, right?” Horka said.
The experience has Horka calling on the county to open another DMV building in addition to the satellite office in Kapaʻa.
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“They don’t have all the records there,” Horka said. “Hopefully it’s kind of like a little bit of an awakening as far as like for the county to have not everything in one structure.”
Kaua’i County Managing Director Reiko Matsuyama said, “I think it is something that we will try to work on, but it would be a long-term goal. Right now, we’re focusing on Kapaʻa.”
The county is working on providing DMV services in Kapaʻa and setting up a temporary location in Līhuʻe over the next few weeks.
The Kapaʻa office is answering questions and accepting documents, but staffers cannot process anything until the computer server is rebuilt, which the county did not provide a timeline for yet.
There is also an emergency grace period through Nov. 21 that protects Kaua’i drivers from penalties if they cannot renew their expired licenses or state IDs.
“We appreciate the community’s patience. It’s been a long road. Our IT guys have been diligently working to restore all of the servers that we were lost in the Kapule fire,” Matsuyama said.
DMV services are the last the county is trying to restore, and all others are available.
Matsuyama said the county also plans to roll out another road test route that is shorter and can accommodate more tests each week.
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