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Kokua Line
June Watanabe
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Reflectors fail to keep cars from hydrants
Question: Why are there no blue reflectors on fire hydrants? I called the Fire Department, and they said they don't do it anymore. There is a hydrant on 2nd Street, around the corner from 903 Lehua Ave. in Pearl City, that needs reflectors because it is constantly being blocked. If there is a fire, they will never find this fire hydrant. I've called police twice about this. I understand nothing is supposed to be blocking a hydrant for 10 feet on either side. What is the law?
Answer: A vehicle is not supposed to be parked within 10 feet of a fire hydrant (Revised Ordinances of Honolulu, Chapter 15) and can be towed away.
You should continue to call police if you see a vehicle illegally parked too close to the hydrant, advised Capt. Kenison Tejada, spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department.
Whenever firefighters are on the road and see that a hydrant is blocked, they will notify police, he said.
The blue reflectors, meanwhile, have nothing to do with warning people about blocking a hydrant.
Those reflectors are known as "hydrant spotters" and were put on roadways to allow firefighters to find the hydrants more easily, Tejada said. They normally are put on the side of the street the hydrants are on.
"They weren't meant to do anything but mark it for the fire department," Tejada said.
In the past, the department went out and placed those reflectors on roadways, but gave up that task three or four years ago, he said.
At one point, blue reflectors marked all the hydrants, but after a while, especially after repaving, some reflectors just disappeared.
The city Department of Facility Management's Road Maintenance Division took over the task and does install the markers, we were told.
We passed on the address you provided.
Q: I went to school in Hawaii up until my junior year in high school. I moved to California, where one of the requirements for graduation was completion of a course in California history. I have always wondered after all these years whether it is a requirement in Hawaii that students take a course in Hawaii history. If this is not the case, I would like to know why, especially when we talk about perpetuating the culture of Hawaii.
A: The state Department of Education requires the study of the Hawaiian kingdom in the seventh grade, while ninth-graders are required to take a half-credit course on modern Hawaiian history.
The modern-history course involves studying the "multiple social, political and economic causes and effects of change in modern Hawaii."
The seventh-grade course involves studying events, people and ideas that led to the unification of the Hawaiian Islands, as well as the effects of the unification; the Mahele (land division) of 1848; the impact of missionaries, immigrant sugar plantation workers and other foreigners; the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, etc.
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kokualine@starbulletin.com.
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