Plumeria Road residents whose homes were damaged by flash flooding are in a state of limbo, waiting for answers.
Surrounded by soaked carpets, mud-covered floors and damaged belongings, they have no idea if it is safe to renovate — or when the next deluge will come barreling through.
“We don’t know if it’s going to happen again tomorrow,” said Sheryl Giesbrecht. “It’s very fearful.”
The Giesbrechts are just one of multiple neighbors along Plumeria Road who have had floodwaters repeatedly enter their homes, knock down stone walls and clog yards with debris. They’re all asking themselves and each other the same questions — why now? What has changed?
Nat Giesbrecht says he has heard that development up mauka filled in a drainage way some years back, causing flooding to divert in their direction. That could be the source of waters that inundated a bedroom on Sept. 5 and returned with a vengeance on Tuesday and Wednesday.
But he is not sure, and the Department of Public Works hasn’t provided any answers so far.
“Now that the flow has been altered, it’s going to come here easily now,” Giesbrecht said. “How do you do anything? We got to know what’s going on up mauka first.”
That may take some time to sort out. Public Works director Warren Lee said in an interview Friday that the department is still investigating what happened. Workers can trace the debris line back along the course of the flooding to determine the cause, he said.
While the memory of residents may differ, Lee said the area has indeed flooded in the past and has natural low spots, which prompted the department to recently install French drains both on lower Plumeria Road and Royal Poinciana Drive. Some homes that are below road grade are particularly vulnerable, he said.
“We’re still looking at it and seeing what can be done,” Lee said.
The Giesbrechts, originally from Canada, had spent a year renovating the house, which they bought in July 2014 as a fixer-upper.
“We figured in a couple of months we could relax and enjoy it,” Nat Giesbrecht said.
Friday, he used a crowbar to rip out cabinets he just finished building when the water crossed his backyard on Tuesday and ponded 2 feet deep in his home, only to recede and return a foot deep one day later.
With the help of neighbors and volunteers from the University of the Nations, Giesbrecht has cut out soaked drywall, torn up carpets and used a pump to drain his mud-filled swimming pool. He’s also set up fans and heaters.
“I’m just trying to dry everything out,” he said.
Randy Acasio is in the same canoe, but he’s had less help. One door down from the Giesbrechts, he’s been flooded three times in the past two weeks. He’s never seen anything like it, can’t get flood insurance, and has been told by neighbors that have lived here over 50 years that water has never before come through the area like this.
He’s had enough.
“Whatever they did up there, they have to fix it,” he said.
As his backyard became a waist-deep lake on Tuesday, Acasio scrambled to beat a hole in a stone wall so the water could drain makai.
“I was trying to bust this wall, but not enough time,” he said. “I told my brother, ‘we gonna get flooded.’”
He worked to knock another hole in a thinner part of the wall and trenched along one wall of the home. But the water came into his ohana, bedroom and garage anyway.
It’s pointless to do much by way of repairs until the source of the flooding is identified and fixed.
“It will happen again,” Acasio said. “Every time I see a cloud up mauka, it worries me. This home is my investment.”
He’s also concerned what might happen next time with his family in the home.
“I have a wife and two kids,” he said. “I work during the day. I can’t be here all the time.”
The Giesbrechts have set up a gofundme account. A nurse at Kona Community Hospital, Sheryl Giesbrecht said it’s hard asking for help.
“But we’re at a point where we have to say this is beyond us,” she said.
The fund can be found online at: https://www.gofundme.com/natsheryl
