RONEN ZILBERMAN / RZILBERMAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
At the Lalea townhouse complex in Hawaii Kai last night, Kordell Kekoa, chaplain for Kamehameha Schools, blessed a unit that was damaged last November by a falling boulder.
Lalea evacuees
all return 1 year
after boulder scareDisplaced residents are glad
to be home on Thanksgiving
Dozens of residents evacuated from their Hawaii Kai townhouse complex after boulders crashed into two vehicles a year ago say they are thankful to be home this Thanksgiving.
The evacuees began moving back into their Lalea townhouses two weeks ago, once wire netting was installed to guard against more rocks and boulders falling from a steep incline behind their homes.
More than 100 residents celebrated the return of the evacuees last night.
Last Thanksgiving, boulders, weighing about 5 tons, crashed from the Kaluanui hillside into two vehicles parked at the complex.
"I can breathe now," said Tracy Galvez, whose cars were struck by boulders. "The past year for us was the most depressing time."
STAR-BULLETIN / 2002
Last November, homeowner Sione Galvez went into the rain to survey the area in front of his Lalea townhome after boulders fell into the Hawaii Kai Drive subdivision. One rock broke a window while others fell on cars.
Rocks, which smashed a second-story window of a unit where a family was eating dinner, also fell during a Thanksgiving night rainstorm.
The incident prompted officials to evacuate 26 units at the housing area in early December for fear that rockslides could threaten residents' safety.
At yesterday's ceremony, the returning residents greeted their neighbors -- some of whom they had not seen in months -- and exchanged handshakes and hugs. A priest blessed the hillside's netting and led the group in a prayer.
The complex's housing manager said all evacuated Lalea residents have since returned, just in time to have holiday meals in their own homes.
Lynn Segawa and her husband left the Lalea townhouses while their child, Caitlain, was still an infant. Yesterday, the young couple was glad that their little girl could finally start forming memories of home.
"It feels really nice to be back," Lynn Segawa said. "It looks pretty safe now."
Construction began in April on the more than $3 million cable netting project to secure the hillside.
RONEN ZILBERMAN / RZILBERMAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
Lalea townhouse residents joined Kordell Kekoa, Kamehameha Schools chaplain, in last night's blessing of the subdivision.
One hundred panels of epoxy-coated stainless steel wire netting were installed on the hillside to keep rocks from falling.
Aldaran Nikou, senior civil engineer for Earth Tech Inc., said yesterday the cable netting project was the first of its scale in the United States.
"We're facing an inclined mountain. Huge rocks," he said. "It was quite a big situation with extremely steep slopes."
The netting was coated black to blend into the hillside.
The layered wire mesh and cable netting are designed to catch freed rocks and shuffle them to the bottom of the hill slowly.
Kamehameha Schools, which owns the hillside land, and developer Castle & Cooke Hawaii agreed to split the project's cost between them.
Over the past year, a number of those residents who were forced to leave were put up in nearby developments. Some stayed in hotels for months before finding a rental. Others roomed with family.
"It was just very uncomfortable for these people," said Pam Olmsted, president of the homeowners association for the complex. "We wanted to move as quickly as we could."
Despite assurances that her home is now safe from falling rocks, Galvez said her extended family will not be having Thanksgiving dinner at her home this year.
After last year's rockslide, which the whole family witnessed, it will take at least another year before they are ready to come back, she said.
But, Galvez said, that won't keep her down.
"I'm settled in and there's no place like home."
