Veteran first-responder Kelly Yamamoto, a district chief and field operations supervisor for the city Emergency Medical Services Division, was singled out Wednesday as 2015 EMS Week Employee of the Year by Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and Emergency Services Director Mark Rigg.
Yamamotos honor was earned as part of National EMSWeek. Caldwell lauded the citys paramedics and emergency medical technicians, and pointed to their response during a recent incident involving a downed V-22 Osprey at Bellows Air Force Station as an example of their exemplary work.
The professionalism, teamwork and skill of our paramedics and EMTs were on full display in their quick response to the 22 Marines who were aboard the Osprey,Caldwell said. Every day on this island, folks with EMSare saving lives.
Survey to track nocturnal birds
The Kauai Endangered Seabird Recovery Project is conducting annual radar monitoring of two nocturnal seabird populations, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources said in a news release Monday.
The project coincides with the breeding season for the ao (Newells shearwaters) and uau (Hawaiian petrels), the release said.
Two trucks will be used at 18 sites along Kaumualii and Kuhio highways and some county roads around the island, according to the release. The sites are where the seabirds are known to fly from the sea to mountainous regions where they breed.
The survey work will run through September, the release said. Monitoring will be conducted two hours after dusk when birds return to their burrows from the sea and two hours before dawn when seabirds fly out.
Because the two species of seabirds only fly back to their colonies at night, its extremely hard to see and count them, project coordinator Andre Raine said in the news release. Radar allows us to see the birds flying overhead in the darkness as a series of dots passing across the radar screen.
Annual radar surveys have been conducted on Kauai since 1983.
