Honolulu City Council members used a Wednesday meeting to press the city’s top emergency manager on how officials handled North Shore flooding that arrived with little notice. The council questioned what it described as slow evacuation orders and updates that were delayed or unclear as residents faced fast-moving water, including in Waialua and Haleʻiwa.
Council members said officials’ timing left residents exposed. By the time an evacuation order was issued for Waialua and Haleʻiwa at 5:30 a.m. on March 20, Council members said residents had already been wading through chest-deep floodwaters, with the discussion centering on what could have been done sooner. Council member Val Okimoto asked why the city waited until that time, pointing to a lower-level evacuation notice provided the week before.
Department of Emergency Management Director Randal Collins told the council that issuing evacuations is not as simple as watching a single stream gauge. He said officials were focused on water levels at the Wahiawā Reservoir, also known as Lake Wilson, as they assessed whether a 120-year-old dam—owned by Dole Food Co. and set to transfer to the state—was at risk of overflow and possible failure.
Mayor Rick Blangiardi defended the city’s response by saying the weather was unpredictable. He cited what he described as a month of extreme rainfall totals—2 trillion gallons across the state in that span, at times reaching 3,000% of normal historical rainfall levels for the season—and said the National Weather Service had predicted less rain for the night of March 19 than what occurred. Blangiardi described the conditions as “wildly unpredictable.”
Mike Formby said the city stands by its metrics for when to order an evacuation, but he characterized evacuation decisions as complex because officials must have plans for where people will go and which venues can house them. Formby said that once officials reach the point where evacuation is ordered, they also have to weigh the likelihood that others could argue that the decision was premature. “When you reach that point, you have to make a decision knowing that Dole and others are going to say, ‘That’s a premature decision, you shouldn’t be evacuating people out of that community,’” Formby said.
Council members also challenged the city’s attention to specific monitoring points. Council Chair Tommy Waters asked why an evacuation order was not issued at 8:25 p.m. on March 19 when Kaukonahua Stream, near Otake Camp, surged 2 feet. Collins responded that officials were not monitoring that gauge because it happened a couple hours before the city’s Emergency Operation Center was activated.
Collins said staffing and communications were also factors. He told the council that his employees were off duty during the period in question and that, in such scenarios, a 911 operator can call to update them on ongoing emergencies. “We never received a call at any time,” Collins said. He also said one problem is that stream monitors do not automatically alert officials when water levels exceed normal levels, and he said his department needs more funding and staffing to monitor additional hazards, noting that the department has 15 full-time positions and that he asked the council last month to fund eight more.
The council discussion also touched on what the city told residents during the early hours of March 20. Officials sent a message shortly after 3:40 a.m. advising residents to evacuate only if they could do so safely, Collins said. He added that first responders were having difficulty getting in themselves, and said, “It’s probably not a good idea to put the citizens in evacuation mode and drive out in those same conditions,” citing darkness and visibility issues.
Council member Andria Tupola said she received useful information through a text thread that her office described as coming from Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s chief of staff, Andy Sugg, on the morning of March 20. But Tupola said other communications—including with the public through the city’s HNL Alert text system—were confusing and not specific enough. “If we can up our communication,” Tupola said, “we need to do that yesterday.”
Separate briefings at the Hawaiʻi Capitol shifted from the city’s emergency response to the state’s recovery and the federal aid process for farmers affected by flash flooding from a Kona low storm system. Representatives from agricultural agencies told lawmakers that farmers whose crops and homes were devastated by flooding need help now and that many lack flood insurance.
Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau Executive Director Brian Miyamoto told chairs of legislative committees that while “our farmers and ranchers are resilient,” resilience “does not replace resources.” Miyamoto said farmers need money quickly, citing damage to crops and the loss of livestock; he also cited additional estimates from agricultural advocates during the briefing. Hunter Heavilin of the Hawaiʻi Farmers Union said the full scale of damage is likely underreported.
Amanda Shaw, director of food systems for Oʻahu Resource Conservation and Development Council, told legislators that the real economic damage to farms likely ranged higher than initial estimates. In that context, Miyamoto said grants are preferable to loans because many farmers are already in debt and cannot afford additional borrowing.
Officials also addressed the timeline for a presidential disaster declaration, which can unlock flexible federal emergency funding. Gov. Josh Green said he requested the declaration last week, but as of Wednesday afternoon President Donald Trump had not granted it. Green’s request and the state’s hopes for eligibility requirements came alongside comments from Honolulu’s managing director, Mike Formby, who said he believed the city would meet the requirements but did not know whether the declaration would come through.
As the council pressed for accountability on emergency planning, state agriculture leaders and local officials pushed lawmakers to accelerate assistance for communities and farms still recovering from the flooding, with Green and local leaders linking that recovery to the federal decision on the disaster declaration.