Newswatch
By Star-Bulletin Staff
Wednesday, August 21, 1996
Yesterday, the road home for the couple and their three children led to despair.
The Hoohulis' six-bedroom wooden frame house and all that was inside had been reduced to a flat rectangle of charred rubble.
"Everything's gone," said Omi Hoohuli, blinking back tears and watching her kids pick through the soggy ashes.
The blaze began shortly before 4 p.m. as a brush fire in a back corner of the five-acre rural parcel at 86-509 Puu Hulu Road and roared mauka toward the old structure, said Waianae fire Capt. Robert Lenchanko. By the time firefighters arrived, the house was "halfway gone," he said.
A noticeable exception: on the Big Island, where the HGEA is backing former Mayor Lorraine Inouye over incumbent, fellow Democrat Stephen Yamashiro.
Union Executive Director Russell Okata yesterday conceded that HGEA's endorsement of all of the Legislature's Democratic incumbents can be seen as support for the status quo. But the endorsements also reflect the union's belief that legislators in general have done a good job in looking out for workers, he said.
HGEA endorsed Mayor Jeremy Harris and prosecutor hopeful David Arakawa in the city's hotly contested nonpartisan elections. Harris won the union endorsement because he did not lay off workers as a way to deal with the city's fiscal crisis, Okata said.
Funding is in the fiscal 1997 Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary Appropriations Bill.
The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.
It will then face a joint House-Senate Conference.
Mary Ito, 65, of Pahala, driving the pickup, died in the 11:25 a.m. accident. Her husband, Kiyoshi, 72, was taken to Hilo Hospital in guarded condition. Both had to be pried from the truck, police said.
The fatality brings the Big Island road toll to 23 this year, compared with 17 at this time last year.
Gregorio Binas, 73, was pronounced dead at the scene of the 7:23 a.m. crash, police said.
Binas' pickup was stopped on N. Kihei Road at Honoapiilani Highway and preparing to turn right toward Wailuku when struck by the station wagon driven by a 23-year-old Kihei woman, Sgt. Sterling Kiyota said. The pickup then drifted right of the Honoapiilani Road, scraped a utility pole, and came to rest in a ditch, Kiyota said.
Kiyota said the autopsy will determine if Binas' death was due to the crash or medical problems.
- Two rapes reported on Big Island
- Police arrest man in beating case
- Man surrenders in door-shooting case