State fixes 2 Kohala roads
washed out by heavy rain
KAHUA RANCH, Hawaii >> The Kohala Mountain Road is fixed and Kahua Ranch staff can get out of the mud.
The state Department of Transportation completed repairs Monday on a 40-foot-wide, 30-foot-deep section of the road that washed out during heavy rain March 14.
The washout took place about 200 yards on the Waimea side of the entrance to Kahua Ranch, so ranch owner Herbert "Monty" Richards had to make a 60-mile-roundtrip detour to pick up his mail in Waimea instead of the normal 25-mile trip.
The ranch devised its own temporary solution for getting to Waimea, driving through pasture land around the washout area and then back onto the winding mountain road, said ranch financial officer Charles Cosgrove.
That worked fine during dry weather, but when rain came, which was often, the pasture turned to mud and became as impassible as the washed-out road, Cosgrove said.
The origin of the problem was a 4-foot diameter culvert under the road which was clogged with debris when the March 14 storm hit, Cosgrove said. Water pressure built up behind the plugged culvert and the whole thing washed down the hill.
Department of Transportation workers installed an 8-foot diameter culvert that can carry four times as much water as the old one.
The work also included reinforced concrete walls, backfill of the site and paving of the new roadway. The overall cost is estimated to be about $250,000, said Hawaii Transportation Department district chief Stanley Tamura.
Another major problem for North Kohala district motorists was the washout March 23 of a 6.5-foot diameter culvert on the coastal Akoni Pule Highway, leaving a hole 30 feet wide and 18 feet deep.
That was replaced by a box culvert 6 feet high and 10 feet long, and the highway reopened to traffic on April 17.
Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. did the work for $280,000, Tamura said.