It’s been almost a year since the last post. I simultaneously can’t believe it’s been that long and can’t believe it’s only been that long. The last year has been so jam packed with craziness that it’s hard to figure out where to start…
After our Thailand trip, we all had come down with something that we think Todd or Gordy picked up at the tail end of our trip. It felt like a flu that lingered for about a week. We made it through that sick bug, but swore that it would be awhile until we did any long distance traveling again. The holidays were nice and mellow and the first few months of the year started off pretty uneventful.
Then, we had 3 back-to-back Kona low storms in March that devastated us.
When the first storm came, Jim and Maryellen had just arrived at our house for a visit. We were all cozied up in the house waiting for the storm to pass playing a puzzle and watching tv when our neighbor came running up our stairs out of breathe in a panic. He couldn’t believe that we were just sitting there when “everything was flooding”. We got up, looked out the window, and only then did we see the massive brown pond that his backyard had turned into. He said that our front drainage easement wasn’t flowing and letting the water out of his property and he needed us to do something about it so that his house did’t flood. So I grabbed shovels and Todd grabbed Ruby (our red mini excavator) and we headed out to the front. We spent the next hour or so digging and finally, we got the easement flowing.
However, there was so much water flowing through that we thought it best for Jim and Maryellen to evacuate with many of the neighbors. So, we said sad muddy goodbyes and promised we’d see the again soon.
At some point after that, the water at the back of our neighbors property had risen so quickly that it started flowing onto ours, so we were getting flooded from both directions. That was it for me. I packed bags for me and Gordy and we went to my mom’s house for the night while Todd stayed to keep an eye on things (ready to paddle out at Silvas if things got too crazy).
Gordy and I came home the next day and couldn’t drive onto our property because the water level was so high.
Apparently the water that ran down the mountains was too much for the canals so it found new paths to flow - directly at our neighborhood. Most of the land and orchards had flooded, but thankfully, no water made it into our house or any of the ohana units. So it seemed that we were lucky and had avoided any damage while so many of our neighbors had not been so lucky.
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| Our house is just north of the house with the red roof. |
We couldn’t believe our luck and had just finished celebrating when the second storm hit a week later.
We went to bed on the night of March 19 a little worried, but having no idea what was about to unfold. At about 12:30am, I woke up to chickens screaming (I don’t know any other way to describe the noise). I jumped out of bed and ran out our sliding door onto the lanai into the rain and looked down below me just in time to watch our mama hen and her 11 babies being washed out from under the lanai by a wave of brown water. They were all screaming and there was nothing I could do to save them. I woke Todd up and we went to the front of the house to find out that everything was covered in water and the water was continuing to rise and rush through our property.
I called all our tenants and told them to evacuate their units and to come to our house since our house is 4 feet off the ground. We spent the next 5 hours with everyone processing things a little differently (some people cried, others vomited, sometimes there was laughing), but all hoping that the rain would stop and the morning light would come.
Some friends of our tenants paddled boards to our house to rescue them and their pets, so around 5:30am, it was just us. The water level was so high at that point, that we didn’t think our car or truck would make it out and we’d heard that the roads in all directions were closed due to flooding. So, we got our wet suits out and ready to put on, Todd set up a ladder on the lanai in case we needed to get on the roof, and we cozied up on a mat on the floor to wait till morning.
When morning came, the rain slowed, the water levels had stabilized and were no longer moving so fast, so we thought things might mellow down. We were wrong. Around 8am we got an emergency notification on our phones that the Wahiawa dam “had failed” and that we should evacuate to higher ground immediately. So, we decided to get in the truck. We waded through disgusting brown filth up to our thighs with backpacks over our heads to our truck and were able to get in without any water getting into the doors. As we drove out the driveway, we hit a low spot and felt the truck wheels leave the ground. It was only seconds that we were actually floating before making contact again on the road, but it felt like a really long time.
We did make it out and after one failed attempt to get out on a closed road, we successfully left Waialua and headed up to our friend’s house in pupukea (thanks Alex, Lauren and Lando!). The dam apparently hadn’t failed (the messaging was wrong), which was maddening, but also great not to have another thing to worry about.
We went home the next day to find our entire property still filled with water and only accessible by wading in on foot. The house that we live in didn’t have any water inside it, but all of our ohana units did. What we now know to be water contaminated by agricultural chemicals and sewage had flooded up to 18” in some units. Everyone’s furniture and personal items had been ruined and the units themselves had to be completely gutted, treated for mold, sanitized, etc.
While this story is sad, and we still really haven’t fully recovered from it, the bright side is what happened next. In the days and weeks that followed, neighbors, friends, and random volunteers with kind hearts showed up on our door. Everyone wanted to lend a hand with cleaning, demo, and some people brought food so we didn’t have to cook, or left water and snacks in our farm stand. It was absolutely incredible to see the number of people who showed up for not just us, but the whole flooded community. Some of our friends even made a gofundme page for us and it raised over $10,000 - which helped cover our mortgage while our tenants weren't able to pay rent, paid for a pod to help them store what hadn't been ruined, and paid initial construction costs until we could get our insurance figured out. I still can barely write this without getting a little emotional thinking about all that people did for us during that time. We will forever be thankful to each and every person.
Things I’ll never forget about that time:
-The dumps were so overloaded from all the waste that people were dumping that they stopped accepting loads. So, our community responded to that by everyone dumping in one spot at a traffic circle. The heap of rubbish was as tall as a 2-story building.
-People from all over the world were coming to our house to help. One day we met people from Makaha who had brought a bunch of trucks to help with dump loads, and another day it was people from Switzerland on holiday who didn’t feel right enjoying a holiday without pitching in. The love was incredible.
-The smell. The moment we drove down Olohio Street, the smell seemed to accost your nostrils. It was a mix of rotten fish and sewage that I never got used to.
-No one came to save us like you see in the movies. Gordy kept asking “where are the helicopters” because it seemed like a good time for a helicopter to come fly over us and rescue us. The only rescue operations were being conducted by community members with construction equipment and paddle boards. No national guard, fire trucks, police, anything. They failed our community.
-Gordy had his first ever sleepover at a friend Lando’s house.
-Bleach doesn’t kill mold.
-The first 24-48 hours are critical for reducing mold. Walls needed to be opened up immediately and high-powered fans needed to blow everything out.
-Sewage and agricultural chemicals can do odd things to skin (rashes, blisters and bumps, etc.), so boots and gloves are a good idea when being outside for a few weeks until future rains can flush it out.
7 months later and we are still not back to pre-Kona lows but we are close. We have finished demoing, mold-treating, and renovating all but one ohana unit. We have cleared out all of our storage sheds and container. Todd cleaned up our bikes and we finally washed our cars (which still thankfully run). And we’ve even made some progress on the renovations on our own house that we had started pre-flood.
The big question for us is, what next? We bought this property thinking that it would be the last place we bought. We could grow old here and Gordy could start his own family here someday. I don’t know that we see that anymore. No one can say for sure why we flooded the way we did… some think it’s because the canals in Waialua haven’t been maintained both by land owners and the city. Some people think it’s because so much land in the area has been converted to farm lands and the water wasn’t able to absorb as easily into the farm soil. Some people say we had a rain bomb drop an unprecedented amount of rain on the mountains. Others say global warming caused it. Regardless of which reason, or reasons, are correct, we don’t know that we want to stay here (not 100% that we know where “here” is) anymore. We also don’t have an answer about where to go instead. However, I’m ok with that. As long as we are together and safe, I think we could be happy almost anywhere. So, for now, we are going to keep finishing the renovations, keep making improvements on the property that will make our lives easier, and live more day to day.
Thank you to all the people who came to our rescue in our time of need. So many people, we don’t even know everyone’s names. But, we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. I don’t know what we’d have done without your help, advice, food deliveries, donations, hard work, hugs, love and support.
