Questions for Roth
Thank you, Mayor Mitch Roth, for telling us what we can do to prepare for future disasters (Tribune-Herald, Aug. 27). “Develop a family plan, prepare an emergency kit, stay informed, plan for evacuation.”
Responsible residents have already done these things, but now what are you going to do, mayor? How many emergency access gates have locks on them? I would like a number.
How may alternate routs can be opened up on island? List them, please.
One of the easiest routs that could be taken advantage of in lower Puna is Railroad Avenue from Hawaiian Paradise Park to Hilo. Several years ago, I addressed this at a community meeting with the former head of W.H. Shipman. He said that agriculture theft was his main concern for not opening up this alternative rout.
Obviously, that’s nonsense. Shipman doesn’t want to cut their huge property in half.
Next time people are trying to escape a disaster, (natural or otherwise) blood will be on his hands. That goes for Mitch Roth and every other politician who didn’t open up alternative routs when they were in power.
As someone who cut trees off of roadways for a week after Tropical Storm Iselle and spent a week evacuating people from Kapoho, I am disappointed in the mayor’s lack of foresight and leadership with his “copy and pasted” editorial.
I have seen several traffic accidents back up the highway from Ka‘u to Hilo for more than eight hours. How many of those people were on their way to the hospital?
The most insulting part about the mayor’s editorial is his invocation of climate change. Were there not wildfires, lava flows, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and hurricanes a hundred years ago? Add traffic accidents and acts of war in the last hundred years.
Future emergencies are not only foreseeable but imminent, and our government is not prepared.
There are emergency routs on the island that are locked up and routs that can be created. Open them up, please.
J.C. Kocher
Keaau
About the bare wires
The front-page headline in the Aug. 27 paper , “Bare wires, leaning poles possible cause … ,” is misleading at best and wrong/alarming at worst.
It has been a common industry practice when high-voltage power lines are employed to use uninsulated wire/cable. Typical high-voltage lines carry very high currents at 17 kilovolts to 600-plus kilovolts. This is a deadly condition in which almost all insulations are ineffective and are not used.
What you will usually see (and is visible in the front-page picture) are ceramic standoffs to isolate the live wires.
Hawaiian Electric is certainly not innocent in the events of the Maui disaster, but the “bare wires” comment is a red herring and has no place in this conversation.
Richard Apothaker
Waikoloa Village