HONOLULU (KHON2) — Roads are heavy with traffic as people try to make it safely home or evacuate high-risk areas.
“We opened up all of our closures,” said Ed Sniffen, Hawaii Department of Transportation’s deputy director. “The Likelike closure is opened up, we got rid of the contraflow in Nanakuli today because we saw a lot of flow coming outwards.”
DOT also worked with the Navy and Army to open up Kolekole Pass.
Sniffen said this was to ensure another evacuation route for Leeward communities on the coast.
Equipment has been pulled from the highways.
“We made sure that we pulled all of our equipment out of the inundation zones to make sure we’re pre-staged to respond to the emergency situation when they come up and we can help people recover after the storm event comes through,” Sniffen said.
DOT said Hilo will be closing off the near coastal roads to minimize potential for harm.
Hilo airport was shut down at 3:15 p.m. The airfields were used to allow people to exit and reach higher ground.
DOT reported three flights that couldn’t leave Hilo and six flights that couldn’t get back in.
The flights have been suspended. DOT said they will be working with the airlines to get them rescheduled.
“The other airports: Kona, Honolulu and Lihue are all open and operating,” Sniffen said. “Based on their geography, we don’t anticipate any impacts during this event. However, there may be a short time frame that we shut it down when landfall occurs just to make sure we’re taking an abundance of caution.”
Sniffen said that flights are aware of the tsunami warning.
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“We’ve updated all flights that are inbound to Hawaii letting them know at that 7:17 p.m. timeframe there may be impacts,” Sniffen said.
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