On Oct. 30, 2004, an intense storm stalled over Mānoa Valley, overwhelming Mānoa Stream and sending floodwaters through the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and surrounding neighborhoods.
The disaster caused an estimated $80-85 million in damage, with roughly $80 million concentrated on campus alone, where more than 30 buildings were impacted. Hamilton Library suffered especially severe losses, including millions of dollars in irreplaceable collections and research materials.
I was a teenager then and remember that night clearly. We had gone out to a family dinner for a few hours. In that short time, the flood came and went. When we returned home, there was a car in a tree.
In the years that followed, officials proposed the Ala Wai Flood Risk Management Project, formally released in 2017, as a long-promised system meant to protect the watershed through detention basins, channel improvements, and floodwalls. It was supposed to be a solution…