Whatever
Happened...
QUESTION: What ever happened to Oahu's 8 p.m. curfew signaled by whistles or sirens? Curfew signal last
blew in 1996ANSWER: The last such 8 p.m. curfew was announced in Waialua in the fall of 1996 with the waning of Waialua Sugar Co.'s operation there.
The 8 p.m. curfew in Waialua was enforced in the old days. A patrol checked streets for youngsters out after the whistle blew. Any found were sent home, but in later years the 8 p.m. curfew was not enforced.
An 8 p.m. sounding was never Oahu-wide, but some citizens regularly heard the whistles. The mightiest was at Aloha Tower. That nightly 8 p.m. siren signaling day's end for juveniles under age 16 blew its last such blast March 30, 1964, some 35 years ago last night.
Maj. Gen. Robert L. Stevenson, state civil defense director, said then that the public action sirens should not be sounded except in cases of emergency or during monthly siren tests.
About that time, Oahu Sugar Co. also stopped sounding its curfew siren from the Waipahu Mill. Ewa stopped sounding its 8 p.m. warning to youngsters later.
By Harold Morse, Star-Bulletin
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