Home Care In Waianae, HI

HONOLULU (AP) — Wildfires in Hawaii fanned by strong winds burned multiple structures, forced evacuations and caused power outages in several communities late Tuesday as firefighters struggled to reach some areas that were cut off by downed trees and power lines.

The National Weather Service said Hurricane Dora, which was passing to the south of the island chain at a safe distance of 500 miles (805 kilometers), was partly to blame for gusts above 60 mph (97 kph) that knocked out power as night fell, rattled homes and grounded firefighting helicopters.

Acting Governor Sylvia Luke issued an emergency proclamation on behalf of Gov. Josh Green, who is traveling, and activated the Hawaii National Guard.

Fire crews on Maui were battling multiple blazes concentrated in two areas: the popular tourist destination of West Maui and an inland, mountainous region. It wasn’t immediately known how many buildings had burned, County of Maui spokesperson Mahina Martin said in a phone interview late Tuesday.

0

Source: NASA

Because of the wind gusts, helicopters weren’t able to dump water on the fires from the sky — or gauge more precise fire sizes — and firefighters were encountering roads blocked by downed trees and power lines as they worked the inland fires, Martin said.

About 13,000 customers in Maui were without power, Hawaiian Electric reported Tuesday night.

“It’s definitely one of the more challenging days for our island given that it’s multiple fires, multiple evacuations in the different district areas,” Martin said.

Winds were recorded at 80 mph (129 kph) in inland Maui and one fire that was believed to be contained earlier Tuesday flared up hours later with the big winds, she added.

Related stories

Scientists look beyond climate change and El Nino for other factors that heat up Earth

Wildfires have burned a record amount of area in the Canadian province of British Columbia

“The fire can be a mile or more from your house, but in a minute or two, it can be at your house,” Fire Assistant Chief Jeff Giesea said.

Hurricane Dora was complicating matters for firefighters in an already dry season.

Hawaii is sandwiched between high pressure to the north and a low pressure system associated with Dora, said Jeff Powell, a meteorologist in Honolulu. The dryness and the gusts “make a dangerous fire situation so that fires that do exist can spread out of control very rapidly,” he said.

“It’s kind of because of Hurricane Dora, but it’s not a direct result,” he said, calling the fires a “peripheral result” of the hurricane’s winds.

In the Kula area of Maui, at least two homes were destroyed in a fire that engulfed about 1,100 acres (1.7 square miles, or 4.5 square kilometers), Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said. About 80 people were evacuated from 40 homes, he said.

“We’re trying to protect homes in the community,” Big Island Mayor Mitch Roth said of evacuating about 400 homes in four communities in the northern part of the island. As of Tuesday, the roof of one house caught on fire, he said.

Fires in Hawaii are unlike many of those burning in the U.S. West. They tend to break out in large grasslands on the dry sides of the islands and are generally much smaller than mainland fires.

Fires were rare in Hawaii and on other tropical islands before humans arrived, and native ecosystems evolved without them. This means great environmental damage can occur when fires erupt. For example, fires remove vegetation. When a fire is followed by heavy rainfall, the rain can carry loose soil into the ocean, where it can smother coral reefs.

A major fire on the Big Island in 2021 burned homes and forced thousands to evacuate.

The island of Oahu, where Honolulu is located, also was dealing with power outages, downed power lines and traffic problems, said Adam Weintraub, communication director for Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

The weather service had in effect a high wind warning and red flag warnings for dangerous fire weather, Powell said.

These conditions were expected through Tuesday, decreasing throughout the day Wednesday and into Thursday.

___ Associated Press writer Audrey McAvoy contributed to this report.

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - After weeks of threats and violence, Castle High School’s homecoming football game is canceled as leaders feel the Friday night game was too risky.

“So, this was certainly not a threat or a situation that the DOE and the school administration took lightly,” said State. Rep. Scot Matayoshi.

“Most of the problems involved the one problem student who bounced around between Waianae and Castle and is now in Nanakuli.”

State Rep. Matayoshi said the problems go back more than a month, when that student got into a fight with a group of students at Windward Shopping Center.

Then last Thursday, he said that same student was involved in an incident at Castle High.

“15 people jumped over the fence and caused trouble, causing a lockdown for about 20 minutes on Castle High’s campus,” said Matayoshi. “And then the next day, there was a shooting threat at Waianae High School, which again, not confirmed that it was linked to Castle at all.”

On Monday, Waianae and Castle High students were notified with a letter.

10.2.2023 Castle, Waianae F... by HNN

Leaders from both schools agreed to cancel the game and said they must prioritize the well-being of students, staff, and families.

“The fear was that the situation was escalating to a point where security and school administration and HPD would not be able to handle a situation for a nighttime football game,” said Matayoshi.

Andrew Toia’s son is on Waianae’s football team and said campuses should be prepared for any type of dangerous situation.

“I think that they should have a better analyzation on how the whole, you know, situation is and come up with ways to defuse it, you know,” said Toia.

Dana Devers’ son plays for Castle.

She has mixed feelings about the decision but said teen violence is getting out of control.

“How is this going to end? How are we going to have all this violence between teenagers end?” said Devers. “Where are these teenagers even getting guns from is another question.”

“You know, I don’t bring my son to school to have his life in danger.”

Superintendent Keith Hayashi released the following statement.

“The Department supports the decision of Castle Principal Tyrell and Waianae Principal Pikelny because student and staff safety is our highest priority. We are working closely with both schools to address the safety concerns. Disclosing additional details could further compromise safety at this time.”

Matayoshi said there were attempts to reschedule the game for Saturday during the day, but there were not enough referees for that time slot.

Copyright 2023 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.

They were going to solve Hawaii’s housing crisis in five months.

It was 1970, and the housing situation in Hawaii had gone from bad to worse. Inflation had pushed the interest rate on mortgages to 7.5% the previous year, causing a slowdown in construction. Few houses were on the market. The vacancy rate for existing housing was minuscule. People were struggling.

“Every day lost in arriving at the needed solutions is going to mean a direct drain on the human resources Hawaii loses, or is unable to attract, and a further clamp on the economy,” the Hawaii Tribune-Herald wrote in an editorial.

Bold action was the only way forward, and politicians had — well, they didn’t have a plan. But they had an idea that could lead to a plan. Just give them half a year and the public would see results.

In the early 1970s Hawaii saw a flurry of government activity aimed at alleviating the lack of affordable housing for low-income families and increasing the generally limited housing stock in the state overall. Politicians called for investigations, passed new laws and pledged to make lasting reforms.

Half a century later, with interest rates back up above 7%, the average single-family home on Oahu selling for over $1 million and nearly 40% of residents in the state saddled with “high burden” housing costs, it’s easy to see that any solutions found in the early 1970s didn’t solve the problem for long.

The lack of available housing in 2023 is an “existential” crisis for the state, Gov. Josh Green said earlier this year, declaring a state of emergency to try to speed up new housing construction.

But an examination of Hawaii’s newspaper archives shows that Hawaii has been facing one housing crisis after another for generations. Despite waves of government reform, the problem seems to only get worse.

Read The Series

Longstanding Problems

The roots of Hawaii’s housing crises run deep.

The state has “the most restrictive land use regulations in the country.” Only 4% of land in the state is zoned for residential housing. Multifamily homes are only allowed on 0.3% of land in the state.

Hawaii has the lowest property taxes in the nation, which makes the state enticing to property investors who can often outbid local families. Vacation rentals take up between 2% and 15% of the housing stock, depending on the island.

A century after the Great Mahele — a historic land division in the 19th century that created a private property ownership system for the first time ever in Hawaii — 58.4% of private land on Oahu was controlled by three major landowners.

Despite the complexity of the problem, politicians and reporters have often focused their attention on the need to reduce construction costs.

“You can’t reduce the price of your land, so you must reduce the construction costs of your housing units,” a real estate consultant told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in 1968.

Perhaps the answer could be found in designing easier-to-build homes, lawmakers have suggested repeatedly over the decades. Or maybe the key could be reviewing zoning regulations. Creating incentives to subsidize the construction of affordable homes. Or “slimming down the government’s permitting bureaucracy.”

In the midst of this, Hawaii has drifted from one housing crisis to another.

The words “housing” and “crisis” appeared in Hawaii newspapers 2,917 times between 1936 and 2023. Some of those mentions are from national and international stories. But many are about the struggles here.

There was a “housing crisis” in Honolulu in the 1930s caused by the transfer of U.S. Navy personnel and their families to the island. Another in the 1940s during World War II.

In 1955, Honolulu’s deteriorating housing stock was a “creeping cancer” that endangered the city, said the head of Honolulu’s Urban Redevelopment Agency.

By the late 1960s, newspapers were declaring housing to be one of the top challenges facing the islands. A sentiment echoed over and over again in papers in the 1970s, 1990s, and today.

Building Our Way Out Of This

During the housing crisis of the late 1960s and early 1970s, many commenters seemed optimistic that government action might indeed bring about real change.

Gov. John A. Burns put together a housing committee to study the problem and set a five-month deadline for recommendations.

The group would look at prefab housing, he said. At how to reduce financing costs. There would be a “serious review” of zoning laws to see how regulations impacted the cost of housing.

And it would have a special event in the spring of 1970 showcasing low-cost model homes to the public — a priority, the governor’s urban affairs assistant said, so that the public would see “proof that the State is getting somewhere on the problem.”

The state convened a housing summit that brought together builders, banks, politicians, bureaucrats and union organizers. The multiday gathering ended with few specific solutions identified, but “a note of optimism that Hawaii will build its way out of the housing crisis” the Honolulu Star-Bulletin wrote in 1970.

The Legislature did take a number of actions that year to try to address the state’s housing woes, including the passage of an omnibus bill that gave the Hawaii Housing Authority the ability to form partnerships with private companies to construct housing for families that made too much money for public housing but still couldn’t afford a regular mortgage.

Act 105 also authorized millions in bond sales for housing projects and created a program to provide down payment loans at low-interest rates or a 100% loan in certain circumstances to families.

Enthusiasm for the efforts didn’t last long.

Then-Lt. Gov. Thomas P. Gill — who had recently run a failed campaign for governor — was intensely critical of the efforts, saying the proposals in Act 105 were “developer-oriented.” He pushed for a much more significant set of state reforms to address the issue.

Gill wanted Hawaii to use state-owned land and “land acquired through condemnation, purchase or exchange” to build housing. He also wanted the state to try to acquire federal land for the efforts.

Additionally, he wanted the state to contract directly with developers to build 5,000 to 10,000 units a year and insisted that any effort to make a housing program work would have to “bypass parts of the existing industry structure.”

“The reason for this is simple,” he said in a Honolulu Star-Bulletin story in December of that year. “The industry is geared toward charging all that the traffic can bear.”

Although Gill’s bid for the governor’s office was unsuccessful, by 1973, stories were coming out about failed projects launched under Act 105, and lawmakers were calling for the creation of a new state “housing czar” position to cut through red tape and address construction delays on state projects.

By 1976, lawmakers were demanding an audit of the act. Though Act 105 was referred to decades later by lawmakers as an important step in addressing housing issues, the warnings of Gill have also resurfaced in recent years as the state has continued to debate how to best address our housing woes.

By 1990, more than a third of respondents in a newspaper poll wanted to see immigration to the islands cease until housing issues could be addressed, while over half of people polled said they didn’t believe the housing crisis could ever be solved.

And how the woes have continued. People who worried about 7.5% interest in the early 1970s saw interest rates rise to more than 18% a decade later.

At the time of Gill’s push for housing reforms, newspaper reports said that a good “rule-of-thumb” for families was for rental or housing payments to take up about 20% of their household income — a percentage that would likely be considered shockingly low to most Hawaii families today.

As of 2019, renters in nearly half the census tracts in the state were spending an average of 30% to 49% of their income on rent.

And while homeownership rates in Hawaii have increased in the last two decades, the state still has one of the lowest percentages of people living in their own homes in the nation.

Since 2010, Civil Beat’s reporting has painted a more complete picture of Hawaii — stories that you won’t find anywhere else.

Your donation, however big or small, will ensure that Civil Beat has the resources to provide you with thorough, unbiased reporting on the issues that matter most to Hawaii.

Make a gift to Civil Beat today and help fund our daily coverage in 2024. And if you’re able, consider a sustaining monthly gift to support our work all year-round.

For Channalyn Fox Weber, 21, and Chevy Alapai-Torres, 20, spending their son’s first Christmas last year in the Waianae homeless shelter was a heartbreaking experience.

At the time, Weber had just given birth to their now 1-year-old son Cayden, and the couple was struggling to find the means to live on their own after a work accident put Alapai-Torres out of work in August.

“To see our babies being in there, that really broke us,” Weber said. “I couldn’t give them much with us being in a shelter. There was only so much that we could do.”

Weber previously had been working as a nail technician until her first pregnancy, which forced her to quit her job due to the strong fumes emitted by materials used in the profession. Other jobs she applied to while pregnant all turned her away, many with the reasoning that she needed to be able to lift up to 50 pounds, she said.

Meanwhile, the injuries Alapai-Torres suffered took months to heal. And despite being pregnant, Weber cared for his injuries while raising their oldest son, Chazyn, as well as Cayden after he was born in mid-December 2022.

The ordeal also left Alapai-Torres with the guilt of not being able to return to work.

Don't miss out on what's happening!

Stay in touch with top news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. Best of all, it's FREE to sign up!

By clicking submit, you agree to Star-Advertiser's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

“The fact that I couldn’t support my kids and my wife, it was just hard and stressful,” Alapai-Torres said. “If it wasn’t for her, I don’t think I’d be where I’m at.”

>> RELATED: This year’s Adopt-A-Family program supports wildfire victims

Fortunately, Alapai-Torres recovered fully and found new employment as a landscaper in early 2023. By October, the couple was able to move their family into their own one-bedroom apartment in Waianae.

Weber recently returned to part-time work as a nail technician, while Alapai- Torres continues to work long hours to support their family.

Despite the hardship their family has endured, Weber and Alapai-Torres maintain a positive outlook in hopes that they will one day be able to provide a better life for their children.

“Even though we’re still struggling, when I think about what we went through, it kind of makes me stronger,” she said. “It makes me feel like we’re slowly going to succeed.”

For Christmas, Alapai- Torres and Weber would like to receive toddler supplies such as diapers or baby wipes, as well as furniture for their new apartment.

—

BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR

The annual Good Neighbor Fund, a charitable partnership between Helping Hands Hawaii, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and First Hawaiian Bank, helps struggling individuals and families during the holiday season.

This year under the Adopt A Family Program, 600 families are seeking assistance with food, clothing, toys and household items. Donations to the Good Neighbor Fund also assist Helping Hands with operational costs for the nonprofit’s Community Clearinghouse Program, which helps people with basic necessities throughout the year, at 2100 N. Nimitz Highway.

The hours for Adopt A Family donations (new items) are from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. For general donations for the Community Clearinghouse (gently used items), drop-off is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.

How to help

People can drop off cash or checks to the “Good Neighbor Fund” at any First Hawaiian Bank branch statewide until Dec. 30. To donate specifically to Channalyn Fox Weber and her family, include the code: HHH-346.

Here is the latest list of donors to the 2023 Good Neighbor Fund:

>> Padosi Foundation $2,500

>> Anonymous $2,350

>> Danton Wong $1,020.80

>> 3 Fold Craftsman Construction Inc. $1,000

>> Melfried Olson $1,000

>> Ronald M. Honda $1,000

>> Diane B. Lierman $600

>> Charles P. Nakagawa $500

>> Clinton Akutagawa $500

>> In honor of Chun Kerr LLP — attorneys and staff $500

>> In memory of Sun, Irene, Galen, Denis and Alex Leong $500

>> Mary Ann Collignon $500

>> Osoki and Ronin Haraguchi $500

>> Richard, David, Mimi, Noah, Claire, Piper, Aria and Laelynn $500

>> Stanley Sugai $500

>> William S. Hunt $500

>> Law Offices of KahBo Dye-Chiew $358

>> John Tokunaga $333.33

>> Sam Yee $306.59

>> Bernice H. Takushi $300

>> In loving memory of Jeffrey K. Watanabe $300

>> In memory of Mom and Dad $300

>> In memory of Ronald F. Hata $300

>> Michael T. Miyabara $300

>> Trystin Lopes $300

>> William Gaeth $300

>> Charlotte P. Chow $250

>> Lance S. Nakamura and Elaine E. Nakamura $250

>> Perry J. White $250

>> Karen Kwock $204.56

>> Barbara Wong $200

>> Clifford K. Nishimura $200

>> Dorothy E. Nakata $200

>> In loving memory of Theodore Garduque and Paul Amor $200

>> In loving memory of Wakatoshi and Aiko Nakamura $200

>> In memory of Calvin K.H. Loo $200

>> In memory of Ernest Yuasa $200

>> In memory of Pali J. Lee $200

>> Laureen H. Wong $200

>> Myrtle F. Kaneshiro $200

>> Clifford Sagara $125

>> Mary Schmitz $120

>> Dana Barbata $102.53

>> In memory of Henry Arita and Derek Arita $102.53

>> Maile Ventura $102.53

>> Pepi Nieva $102.53

>> Bertha Y. Lum $100

>> George K.H. Lau & Associates $100

>> Herman Wong $100

>> I. Robert Nehmad $100

>> In loving memory of Adam and Virginia Moniz $100

>> In memory of Hilo Girl $100

>> In memory of Hung Joong and Ah Lin Young $100

>> In memory of Robert Hee $100

>> Jean C. Warren $100

>> Judy Yanagida $100

>> Lucas McCollum $100

>> Lynn N. Nishihara $100

>> Maile B Davis $100

>> Merry Christmas Haksoon and James Mercado, Rene Catalan, Angelita and Frank Catalan and all our furry babies. We love and miss you all. Jeanne, Richard, Noelle, Justin, Devon, Noah, Aria, Peter and our furry babies. $100

>> Mike Shimabukuro $100

>> Nicole Pedersen $100

>> Patrick Yamamura $100

>> Richard and Linda McCabe $100

>> Rosalie M. Toguchi $100

>> Sandra M. Akasaka $100

>> Stephen Silva $100

>> Susan Gabaree $100

>> T.R. Enterprise Inc. $100

>> Beny Pacubas $75

>> Kaylin Young / Aiden Young $60

>> Karen O. Harunaga $50

>> Sandra W. Linskey $50

>> Merry Xmas $45

>> Laura K. Chong $40

>> In memory of Ethel and Henry Kajiyama $35

>> In memory of Dad, Mom and Dean $25

>> Thomas M. Arashiro $25

>> Bernice Ann Lantz $20

>> Sandy Rosario $20

>> Stephanie Jean Hisano Wada $15.80

Weekly total: $23,439.20

Previous week’s total: $41,808.46

Grand total: $65,247.66

Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.

Correction: The correct code to donate to Channalyn Fox Weber and her family is HHH-346. An earlier version of this story had an incorrect code in the How to Help section.

Comments have been disabled for this story.

Previous Story

Tyson Miyake appointed by Gov. Green to Maui House seat

Next Story

Hawaii Real Estate Sales: Oct. 9-13, 2023

Click here to see our full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak. Submit your coronavirus news tip.

A football game between Castle and Waianae high schools that was scheduled for Friday has been canceled to “prioritize the safety and well-being of our students,” the principals of both schools announced in a joint letter.

The game was supposed to be part of Castle High’s homecoming week activities.

The announcement came in the wake of threats made recently toward both schools, although school and state officials have not said who made the threats, nor have they released details about the content of the threats.

Castle High School was put on lockdown at around 3 p.m. Thursday for about 20 minutes.

On Friday, Waianae High School “received information about a potential threat,” Principal Ray Pikelny-Cook said in a letter to parents that was posted on the school’s website titled, “Parent Notification — Social Media Threat.”

Hawaii Department of Education spokesperson Nanea Kalani said Monday that the Waianae case did not involve Castle.

Don't miss out on what's happening!

Stay in touch with top news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. Best of all, it's FREE to sign up!

By clicking submit, you agree to Star-Advertiser's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

On Monday, a letter addressed to “Castle High and Waianae High Football Ohana” and signed by Pikelny-Cook and Castle Principal Bernadette Tyrell was posted on both schools’ website, saying that the decision to cancel the game “was jointly made by the administrations of both schools and was not made lightly. While we believe in the power of athletics to unite and inspire, we must prioritize the safety and well-being of our students, staff and families above all else.

“We understand the disappointment and frustration this may cause,” the letter continued. “Please know that we remain committed to our student-athletes and the importance of athletics in our schools. Thank you for your understanding. We value your partnership as we work together to ensure a safe and supportive environment for our students.”

Kalani said the principals, complex area superintendents, school safety administrators and law enforcement are cooperating to keep the schools safe.

State Schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi on Monday said in a statement that that the DOE “supports the decision of Castle Principal Tyrell and Waianae Principal Pikelny because student and staff safety is our highest priority. We are working closely with both schools to address the safety concerns. Disclosing additional details could further compromise safety at this time.”