KAUPO - Maui County officials shut down a portion of Piilani Highway on Sunday morning after heavy rains and runoff lifted pavement off portions of the road and sent mud and debris into the Kalepa Bridge and Pahihi gorge.
County spokeswoman Mahina Martin said driving conditions in the area were hazardous, and the closed portion of the road was between Mileposts 38 and 39. The closure means Kipahulu and Hana residents must use Hana Highway via Haiku to get to Central Maui.
County crews used heavy equipment to try to clear the bridge and had more work to do today, she said. An initial assessment was that the bridge did not sustain structural damage, but crews would inspect it again today.
She said she had "very little hope" that the road would reopen by this morning.
"The conditions look poor," Martin said Sunday evening after receiving an assessment from crews with the county's Department of Public Works. "It's just unsafe right now."
According to reports from National Weather Service rain gauges, Kaupo Gap saw 8.06 inches of rain for the 24-hour period ending at 5 p.m. Sunday.
Nearly all of it came in the 12 hours from 5 p.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Sunday.
The Kalepa Bridge, estimated to be about two car lengths long, was covered in about 3 feet of mud and debris. Crews also reported that asphalt on newly paved roads in Kaupo had been lifted off because of the heavy downpour and runoff from nearby mountains.
Following Sunday's road shutdown, Martin said county officials sent advisories to hotels and resorts and asked them to let visitors know they could not drive into East Maui through Kaupo.
Maui County Council Member Bill Medeiros, who holds the council's East Maui residency seat, stayed outside of his home in Hana this weekend because of commitments he had in Central Maui and plans to travel to Lanai today.
Medeiros said he spoke with relatives by phone on Sunday, and one told him roads into Hana were difficult to maneuver because of swollen streams.
In the East Maui watershed, the West Wailuaiki rain gauge recorded 8.38 inches for the 24-hour period, with half of it coming in the 12 hours from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
The area most affected by rain and mud was the Kaupo residential area, Medeiros said. "The roads there are pretty much washed out," he said.
For two years following a pair of strong earthquakes on Oct. 15, 2006, residents of the remote East Maui community were cut off from their most direct route to Central Maui because of damaged roads and bridges and cliffs that were dangerously unstable.
Cliff faces were braced with steel netting, and road bases were repaired and reinforced with concrete. The county reopened more than 10 miles of road in East Maui in early October. The work cost $10.8 million.
