Kahului Once Again Leads All Maui Towns in Safety Cones, Per Report

It was a remarkable year on Maui for several reasons ~ and the biggest of all may have involved an island favorite: orange rubber safety cones. We knew it might be a crazy annum by May, when the county announced a safety cone shortage on Maui.

That followed news that for the third straight year, Maui topped the world in the number of orange rubber cones per capita, according to the National Orange Rubber Cone Industry Association (NORCIA) based in Portland.

By year’s end, NORCIA notified the county of its annual report regarding which towns on island have the most safety cones per household. The winner for 2024?

“For the fourth straight year, Kahului claimed the top prize for most safety cones on Maui,” said Peter Hoy, executive director of the cone association. “Hana made it a contest this year, with safety cones dropped all along the Road to Hana and peppered all over the place in town and at parks, even at various spots on the back road. But it all couldn’t add up to the sheer safety cone numbers of Kahului.”

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The report made the following findings for each town, ranked in order of most cones per capita:

• Kahului. “Nowhere else will you find such huge displays of orange safety cone numbers in limited spaces,” Hoy said. “They make  it look like parking is more scarce in Kahului than in New York City. It looks like everyone is using cones ~ as well as rocks, plastic laundry detergent bottles, and other things like empty kegs ~ to protect parking spots near homes.”
• Hana. “We found a road stand just as you get into Hana that had plants growing out from the hole on the top of cones. What’s also notable here is the randomness. You can find cones in every nook and cranny on the east side, as if it's an art form or something.”
• Kihei. “Kihei has always been a strong contender and this year was no different. Over the years, they have had so many cones along South Kihei Road that we assumed they’d run out of space and the cone population would shrink. But, nope. Kihei is consistent.”
• Wailuku. “This is kind of unfair because it bunches several communities under one umbrella. Wailuku town has its good share of cones; but add to that the ones you see in Waihee-Waihu, and Paukukalo, and they’re in the running every year it seems.”
• Paia. “Shocking how many cones they can fit into this one small town. We saw this hippie trip over one near the joint for the flatbread pizza in Paia. Get a little further out, and enjoy the blue cone usage at Momma’s Fish House. It's breathtaking.”
• Upcountry. “Makawau, Pukalani, and Kula enjoy the benefit of being really spread out, giving these towns the perception that they are cone-challenged. No way, it all adds up and there are a lot of traffic-involved strobiloids up that grade.”
• West Maui. “While you will see your fair share of safety cones in Lahaina, Kaanapali, Kapalua, and areas in between, residents there seem to manage their cone droppings pretty well.”
• Maalaea. “We can’t pinpoint why this little community sees a need to use cones all over. Maybe it has something to do with all the boat captains and fishermen there, or maybe it’s the fierce afternoon winds, who knows? We did see a cone rolling past Haycraft Park one mid-day with killa wind gusts. Almost rolled over a middle-aged couple sitting on the beach, like it was a tumbleweed rolling through Tombstone.”
• Wailea. “This town is sneaky about it. We especially like the white cones at the back gates of some of the resorts. Savvy.”

BALANCING ACT: Some wise guy somehow set a safety cone way up high on this famous statue in Kaanapali. (Image by Robert Sargenti of Hana)

Maui officials said they hope in the new year the island can avoid dangerously low on orange rubber safety cones – as it has two of the past three years.

County inspectors monitor cone supplies at Lowe's, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, and other retailers, and when the numbers are too low, an cone emergency is called.

“We make sure there will be enough safety cones in case of big emergencies,” said Larry Anzen, supervisor of the county’s safety cone monitoring division. “When a cone emergency is called, we ask Maui residents and businesses to conserve cones, to not go buy brand new ones, or at least strategically recycle the ones they have.”

“An ongoing challenge is workers who set all the cones they have on hand around relatively small work areas,” Barton Puu of the county Public Works Department. “Then, they forget to retrieve them all, so a cone could remain in one spot for weeks or months, and no one knows why it’s there.

“Eventually, everyone just assumes it’s protecting something, and they leave it there. We’ve seen some cones turn black because they’ve been in the same spot out in the brutal sun since the Clinton administration. One in Kihei  turned black, then keeled over onto its side in the heat, and then got run over by a car so it's flat and looks like a burned piece of pizza on the ground. But no one will move it.”

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