HANAMA’ULU — It was going to take more than 60 mph winds to keep Tsuyoshi Tanigawa from making it to his bonsai class at Lihu’e Neighborhood Center. Though the overnight and early morning storm knocked out power, closed businesses and
HANAMA’ULU — It was going to take more than 60 mph winds to keep Tsuyoshi Tanigawa from making it to his bonsai class at Lihu’e Neighborhood Center.
Though the overnight and early morning storm knocked out power, closed businesses and restaurants and caused all sorts of electrical problems at Wilcox Memorial Hospital, Kauai Medical Clinic and other enterprises, many Kauaians maintained remarkably normal lives yesterday.
The standing joke at King Kaumuali’i Elementary School here, where school was held despite an early morning power outage that left students to eat breakfast of cold sausages in a darkened cafeteria, was, “What is the difference between today and Hurricane ‘Iniki?”
“Two miles per hour.”
While that punch line was being delivered on the campus littered with palm fronds, blowing debris and other sundry projectiles, a roof shingle blew off one of the buildings and landed between the adults sharing the joke.
Aggressive drivers at the intersection of Kuhio Highway and Kaumuali’i Highway continued their regular practice of zooming into the right lane to get ahead of a few vehicles in the left lane, though generally there was less traffic than normal on Lihu’e-area roads mid-morning.
Elsewhere around town, crews did a good job removing yet another set of traffic signals knocked down and wrecked at the intersection of Kaumuali’i Highway and Nawiliwili Road near Kukui Grove Center, and some smart guy with a chain saw effectively removed a large tree that had blown onto Kaumuali’i Highway near Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School.
By 10 a.m. yesterday, the white picket fence the tree crashed through had been partially repaired.
Police kept vigil at the intersection of Ahukini Road and Kuhio Highway, directing traffic for most of the morning and into the afternoon, as the signal there lacked power.
But the most-dedicated crew had to be the boys from ‘Akahi Maintenance who, in 40 mph winds, dutifully raked and swept leaves and other debris in the Lihue Shopping Center Annex parking lot early yesterday morning.
A man dutifully walked his dog through a Puhi park, while others joined forces to secure poles, cords, tents and tarps ripped apart by the high winds.
Life was far from ordinary, though, for maintenance crews at Wilcox Memorial Hospital and Kauai Medical Clinic (collectively Wilcox Health), as electrical and generator problems kept the maintenance men on their toes all day long.
