Paradise Lost

Like many of my fellow students, I went in search of sun, surf and some tropical beverages over spring break. I headed for the island of Kauai in Hawaii. Unfortunately sun was in very short supply, and it was too wet to play in the surf. It actually rained every single day I was on Kauai. But this story isn't about my lack of a suntan. It's about a natural disaster that took eight lives, including those of a couple about to be married. It's also about governmental failures and successes. \nKauai wasn't merely wet during my stay; it was flooded. After more than two weeks of rain, the island was saturated, and flash flood warnings were a daily occurrence. On March 14, the Ka Loko dam on the north side of the island gave way, sending more than 400 million gallons of water rushing downhill to the ocean. The torrent washed away everything within a three-mile swath, including the house of the Fehring family and the eight people inside it. So far, only three of the bodies have been found.\nThis story is tragic enough, but just as the government ignored its own warnings about the New Orleans levees, state officials in Hawaii knew that many of Hawaii's dams were dangerously worn down. Ka Loko dam was an earthen dam built more than 100 years ago. In October 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers released a report saying at least 22 dams in Hawaii were in dangerous condition. After the dam break, Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle admitted that the state had failed to adequately \nmonitor dams.\nAnd that's where this story is different than Hurricane Katrina. Instead of chaos and finger pointing between local, state and federal officials -- that would have been comic if it hadn't been so deadly -- after the Ka Loko dam break, officials worked together to minimize any future loss of life. Disaster officials worked together, and within two days the state legislature had approved disaster relief funds, as well as funds to assess the safety of Hawaii's dams. Instead of pointing fingers at each other in those first precious moments, Hawaiian officials monitored other dams and reservoirs to ensure their safety. Civil defense officials were posted at key locations around the island. There was one next to us watching a stream that was at risk for flooding. In the end they pumped water out of the reservoir that threatened this stream.\nEven more remarkable, officials admitted they had failed. Lingle's admission that officials failed to monitor the dams stands in stark contrast to the ongoing finger pointing and name calling between former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana officials. Maybe if they all followed Lingle's lead and admitted failures there wouldn't be so much waste and delay in the effort to rebuild New Orleans.\nAccountability is a novel concept that all levels of government could use some more of. It can't bring back the eight lives lost on Kauai, but it might make future accidents less likely.