Waihee homes hit in Sunday flooding
Flash flood leaves damage, cleanup and some harrowing tales
The arduous cleanup and repairs in the aftermath of Sunday’s Waihee River flash flood continued Friday, as they will — no doubt — for some time to come.
The flooding claimed no lives, but it stranded some residents for a time, inundated homes and yards and left people with harrowing tales of survival.
Mayor Alan Arakawa declared a state of emergency Friday for the Waihee flooding and for the ongoing threat of flooding from heavy rains and saturated ground through Sunday. The declaration may remain in effect for as long as 60 days and paves the way for disaster relief, according to his proclamation.
A River Road resident for 26 years, Aimee Anderson had been in her neighbor’s yard, watching the raging water Sunday afternoon. “It’s not unusual to see it ripping,” she said.
But then, the Waihee River overwhelmed its banks and “created a second river,” she said.
Suddenly, she, her husband and their neighbor were in thigh-deep water in a matter of seconds, watching more rush onto the property, she said. “This happened very, very, very quickly.”
They realized the yard would be flooded soon and knew they needed to “get out of there,” she said.
“I thought we were going to die,” she said, then added, “Well, it definitely crossed my mind.”
They managed to get to their neighbor’s garage and then to the second floor, Anderson said.
From a second-floor window, she watched her 2008 Toyota Rav4 float into her neighbor’s house, and she saw one of her prized laying hens get swept downriver. She said only one of her 10 hens survived, along with five house and five outside cats, now all accounted for.
“The house is still standing, so that’s a good thing,” she said, although thick debris around the foundation of the post-and-pier residence needs to be cleared to make a full damage assessment.
Downstream, a man lost 15 goats and much of his property, along with all his ducks and chickens, Anderson said.
Also downstream, next to the Waihee Bridge, Maureen and Stanley Naganuma, both 72 years old and 25-year residents of Waihee, were scrambling to save what they could from flood damage.
“We just got home from shopping, and we saw the water starting to come in the front yard,” said Maureen Naganuma.
It was around 1:30 p.m., she said, and she and her husband, Stan, immediately removed their two vehicles — a Prius sedan and a Honda Ridgeline truck — from the driveway and out of danger of being swept into their house.
“It was horrendous,” she said.
They called 911 emergency dispatchers for help and looked for their 5-year-old female cat, Battery.
“We found Battery and locked her in the house,” Mrs. Naganuma said.
Then, they secured all their documents in plastic containers and moved those, along with electronic equipment, including a laptop, into one of the vehicles, she said.
Then, “Stan immediately went to the main panel and turned off the gas,” she said, adding that within 30 minutes a crew of firefighters arrived.
“There was nothing they could do,” she said. But “they wanted to make sure we were safe, and we were.”
Before long, the firefighters left to help residents in homes on the opposite, north bank of the stream, she said.
Downstairs, the sliding glass door to the office “imploded,” she said. “Everything in the office was destroyed.”
Valuables, including a desktop and a laptop, are missing, she said. “They must be down in the ocean.”
The residence’s downstairs area was covered with 4 inches of mud, debris, grass and rocks, she said.
The most heartbreaking damage was to original genealogy documents for the Kauaua family from West Maui, dating back to the 1700s and the time of Kamehameha the Great, she said. The information remains intact on computer, she said, but work was ongoing to clean and restore the original handwritten papers.
“What was devastating was this incident; it was unexpected,” she said. “Now, it’s overwhelming because of the cleanup.”
The Naganumas’ son, Scott, a Lahaina resident, was called Sunday and rushed to help his parents, needing to detour down through the Waiehu Terrace subdivision because a portion of Kahekili Highway was closed by the flooding.
When he arrived, he saw “everything in the garage piled up on one side . . . an 8-foot mound,” he said.
Water had flowed through a carport, through glass doors to a downstairs office area and “blew out a back wall,” Scott Naganuma said. He could see some of his parents’ belongings in their backyard, and “some things washed downstream.”
The floodwaters also took out a half-dozen posts in the post-and-pier main house, he said, although the house remains standing. “Everything in the carport was a total loss,” he added.
“It was overwhelming,” he said.
Friends and family have helped clean up, and Naganuma said he wanted to give a shoutout to Mayor Arakawa, whose staff responded immediately, in less than 10 minutes, to a call for help.
“He really got involved immediately,” he said, noting that Randy Piltz, an executive assistant to Mayor Arakawa, provided assistance.
Mrs. Naganuma said county Managing Director Keith Regan, Maui Emergency Management Agency Administrator Herman Andaya and Joshua Black, an emergency management specialist, all showed up personally to offer help.
Any assistance the government can provide is welcome, Mrs. Naganuma said. “We cannot do this ourselves.”
An insurance adjuster is coming Monday, she said.
Anderson estimated damages to her residence and belongings at roughly $80,000, including $50,000 for two vehicles — her Toyota Rav4 and her husband’s 2018 Ford F-250, with less than 1,000 miles on it.
She said there was some flooding in her home, and she needed to pull out carpeting in the master bedroom. But the rest of the house has tile flooring, so cleanup is difficult, but not as bad as if it were all carpeted. And, the water damage didn’t go up the drywall, she said.
“We’re pretty lucky,” she said.
Overall, the former Maui Humane Society director of animal control said the experience was “rather surreal.”
As a former State Farm insurance adjuster, Anderson specialized in handling disaster claims, but “I never lived through one,” she said. “After seeing the aftermath and actually being in one, I have a better understanding and a better empathy level for people who go through things like this. It was very frightening. It was life-threatening.”
The biggest concern, she said, is that the flooding changed the geography of the Waihee River.
“We don’t know with the next big rain what’s going to happen,” she said. “And that’s the most frightening part.”
But she said she feels blessed because “it could have been much worse, and nobody died.”
Fire Services Chief Edward Taomoto said he knows of four residences in the Waihee area that had flood damage on Sunday. Three were on the north side of the river and one was on the south side, he said.
On River Road, a man reported being trapped by flooding, but he was able to walk out safely after floodwaters receded, he said.
Later, firefighters were able to get a 15-year-old boy out of the second story of a home, Taomoto said. The teen reported that stream water rose 8 to 10 feet in a matter of minutes.
Regan said there was no damage reported to county infrastructure, including water and sewer systems, but the river itself has “dropped significantly, scoured by the power of the water.”
He believed six to eight homes were impacted by flooding.
Also, Regan said there have been reports of taro farmers having damaged water supplies. “We haven’t had the ability to get up into the valley to speak with them,” he said.
An emergency community workday is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday to restore water to the auwai on the north side of Waihee Valley, according to a Facebook posting. Parking for volunteers is available at 2644 Kahekili Highway. For more information, call 276-7685 or 264-2616.
To report damage to the county Emergency Management Agency, call 270-7285. Or, fill out a damage report on its website at www.mauicounty.gov/70/Emergency-Management-Agency.
* Brian Perry can be reached at bperry@mauinews.com.