KAPAA — For the past three years, Leeundra Baltazar’s husband Andy has been cultivating something special on their land.
After coming home from work as part of a maintenance crew at a hotel, he spent his time clearing about an acre and a half of their land near a river on Hauaala Street in Keapana Valley on Kauai’s Eastside.
His friend had given him three banana trees and he wanted to expand on that gift.
From those three trees, his banana patch grew into something beautiful.
“We had over 1,000 trees,” he said.
That is until last Sunday, when the storm hit and the river began to rise.
“It rose fast,” Leeundra said of the river.
The rising, rushing waters took nearly all their trees downstream with it. Losing the trees, Andy said, broke his heart.
“I was day and night, finishing at 12 o’clock at night before I go to the house. Almost every day I do that, because I’ve got to go to work too,” he said.
But Andy isn’t giving up. He’s starting to replant some baby trees he has and hopes to regrow what was lost in the flood.
“I’m going to try again,” he said.
“That’s what I did before. I started with three trees.”
As for the storm, “it’s Mother Nature,” he said. “What can you say?”
This time, he might put some boulders near the stream to try to protect his plants in case of another flood.
He’s inspired to replant because people love bananas and he wants to sell them on the side of the road.
“In my suit,” he said, with a smile.
“A banana suit. I dance. I get more people to stop by and sell out every time,” he said.
He grew a variety of bananas, including apple bananas and cooking bananas. Aside from losing all of the trees, he also lost a lot of equipment.
“All of my carpenter’s tools that was in my shed, a brand-new lawn mower, underwater. The first flood we had two months ago, I lost my slip-and-slide for the kids, I lost my other riding lawn mower,” he said. “Many things I lost.”
The banana farm was a special place for the Baltazar family. Andy had built a bamboo house for the kids to hang out in, and in February, he and his wife renewed their wedding vows on the farm.
“The farm was beautiful,” Leeundra said. “People would come by and think it was the botanical garden.”
They’re not the only family in Keapana Valley that sustained damages to their property. A neighbor, they said, lost all of their vehicles, and another neighbor had severe water damage to their house.
Residents of the valley, they said, haven’t received the same kind of help that the North Shore has received.
“That’s one thing, nobody comes around over here, check on us over here. Mostly Hanalei,” he said. “We got flooded over here too. I’m just doing it by myself. Luckily, I got my friend guys coming up now.”
Since Keapana River flooded as well, he doesn’t understand why they’re not getting help too.
Leeundra feels bad for her husband, and all the hard work that he put into the farm.
”He had a Cadillac he was saving for my son which is starting to drive and he had it stored where under all his tools was and the river got to the car, so that made him feel even worse,” Leeundra said.
On the other hand, she said, they didn’t lose any animals or family members in the storm.
“We got one bed for sleep in at night, so we’re very fortunate. It was just material things that can be replaced and replant. Can buy new tools. At least we get our home and families,” she said.
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Bethany Freudenthal, courts, crime and county reporter can be reached at 652-7891 or bfreudenthal@thegardenisland.com
