Asthma attack leads to evacuation
KIHEI - The U.S. Coast Guard medically evacuated an 18-year-old man who suffered an asthma attack Thursday morning while he was aboard a boat near Molokini.
The boat's crew called for help at 8:30 a.m. via a VHF radio, Coast Guard officials said. The man was unresponsive and had a weak pulse, but he was still breathing.
A doctor aboard a nearby boat was transferred to help the man while Coast Guard crews were en route to pick him up. The man was taken to the Kihei Boat Ramp in a 45-foot Coast Guard boat and transferred to an ambulance crew.
Information was not immediately available on the man's condition.
*****
Don't send emails to Cameron Center
WAILUKU - The Cameron Center is updating its Internet systems, and officials are asking residents not to send email to the center from noon today to 8 a.m. Tuesday.
Email messages sent while the system is being updated will likely be lost. The center is changing its Web page, Internet security provider and email hosting agency.
*****
Emergency sirens are false alarms
WAIEHU - An emergency Civil Defense siren at Waiehu Beach Road sounded for more than two minutes in Central Maui around 2 a.m. Thursday, Maui County said.
But officials emphasized that it was a malfunction and not an emergency.
Officials were continuing to look into why the siren - used to alert residents to emergencies such as tsunamis - accidentally went off, although a Civil Defense official said the explanation could be as simple as a gecko getting into the system or a failing battery.
Maui police spokesman Lt. Wayne Ibarra said the siren jolted him out of bed early Thursday. He said police were been flooded with calls from residents asking about the siren.
Sirens on the island previously sounded false alarms in July because of a malfunction.
Tsunami waves last struck Hawaii in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake across the Pacific in Japan on March 11. Civil Defense sirens sounded to alert residents of the coming tsunami.


