Maui County Pulls Huge Sawdust Logs to Prepare for Storms

A year ago, Maui suffered a big rain storm and as usual, north Kihei flooded.

However what concerned Maui County officials most is how several locations along South Kihei Road also flooded.

“The entire Kalama Park was flooded pretty well, and it’s nowhere near north Kihei,” said Horacio Headshaker, a roads engineer with the county. “We were left scratching our heads about that for months.”

Then, just a few months ago after yet another storm and north Kihei flooding event, some alert residents there noticed gigantic sawdust logs clogged in street drains.

North Kihei neighbors pulled out the huge squishy logs, which are supposed to be taken away after nearby road repairs are completed, from street drains and there has not been flooding there since.

This week, locals noticed more logs pulled out of drains and lying on sidewalks all along the long north-south corridor through South Maui.

That was by design, county officials say.

“We remember a year ago, and saw forecasts for some rain in coming weeks, which reminded us to get all the gigantic sawdust logs out of the drains,” Headshaker said. “We’re being proactive.”