‘Nobody taking responsibility’: Oahu residents say some Lala storm damage was preventable

News admin August 18, 2026 0 Comments

‘Nobody taking responsibility’: Oahu residents say some Lala storm damage was preventable

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Residents and businesses across Oahu were cleaning up debris and water damage. Many said the some of mess could have been prevented.

Waiawa Road flooding

Neighbors at the end of Waiawa Road were cleaning up for the fourth time this year. Saturday into Sunday, the bike path in front of their homes turned into a river.

“Went right down a bike path, and once again, for the fourth time, we came right through my house, right over the door. And again, the walls, the water in the house is this high,” said Albert Kim, a Waiawa Road resident.

“Everything was clear, and then all of a sudden, boom, it came down like really fast. So the whole river, it’s just piled, like this, all the way up the river,” said Corrie Young, a Waiawa Road homeowner.

Monday morning, the bikeway bridge was jammed with debris from upstream and from the neighboring ABC junkyard. The state was calling in an excavator, but because the stream passes many properties on its way there, it may not be clear for long.

“Nobody taking responsibility,” Kim said.

The neighbors say they have never had a year like this, and say the stream doesn’t clear out the way it used to.

One of the reasons neighbors believe the flooding has come more often is that the junkyard has built up the berm it uses to protect the rubbish, and that berm is not allowing the water to escape to the ocean.

The neighbors say it is pushing the water into their neighborhood.

“We were always high, the higher side of the river, so we never caught this much damage,” Young said.

“It caused the flow to divert. But we never used to have this bad before. And they messed around with the flow of the stream. Everything’s coming this way,” Kim said.

Falling trees cause damage across the island

Falling trees were the primary source of damage elsewhere on the island, including a house in Pearl City, where a towering albizia tree was a known threat.

“It didn’t surprise me. I kind of see it coming, how big it was, and, I mean, the last time we had branches snapped, but this time I think the wind was worse, so yeah, that wasn’t really too surprised,” said Keolanui Keola, a Pearl City resident. “Was it scary? Uh, it was kind of, I’m not gonna lie. … I was worried. Not too scared, just worried — worried for our other neighbors’ house.”

The tree’s brittleness also made it lighter, so the damage wasn’t major.

In Maili, volunteers cleaning up removed a city tree that had fallen on Adeline Pacheco-Lopez’s fence.

“I called City and County two years ago, complaining about the tree branches was encroaching over my property when I had my palm trees. No one showed up two years ago, and this is the end result,” Pacheco-Lopez said.