Kamehameha Highway reopened after rail construction crew ruptures gas line
A screenshot from a traffic camera showed vehicles backed up along Kamehameha Hwy at Honomanu St. this morning after a work crew ruptured a gas line. (Courtesy GoAkamai)
GOAKAMAI.ORG
A traffic camera image shows a fire truck on scene near the intersection of Kaonohi Street and Kamehameha Highway, where a excavator hit a gas line this morning.
GOAKAMAI.ORG
A screenshot from a traffic camera showed vehicles backed up along Kamehameha Hwy at Honomanu St. this morning after a work crew ruptured a gas line.
CELIA DOWNES / CDOWNES@STARADVERTISER.COM
Firefighters stood near the border area established to prevent a possible explosion from the gas leak. People were not allowed to start their cars in order to avoid creating an ignition source.
GOAKAMAI.ORG A traffic camera image shows a fire truck on scene near the intersection of Kaonohi Street and Kamehameha Highway, where a excavator hit a gas line this morning.
Kamehameha Highway was reopened this afternoon after being closed since 9:45 a.m. after a work crew ruptured a gas line.
Police said lanes between Lipoa Place and Pali Momi Street in both directions reopened by about 4 p.m.
The break in the eight-inch line was reported at 9:45 a.m. after an excavator hit the utility line near Lipoa Place.
Two fire companies and the department’s hazardous materials team were dispatched to the scene.
Patrons at Anna Miller’s Restaurant, which is near the break, were told by firefighters that they could not leave because the parking lot was cordoned off due to the risk of an explosion.
Firefighter Brad Harrison with Hazmat 1 described the red-tape border as marking off the “lower explosive limit” levels.
Shirley Ponciano of Kaimuki met someone at Anna Miller’s and found herself unable to leave for work in Kaimuki.
“At least nobody’s hurt,” she said.
Fire officials referred questions to the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation.
53 responses to “Kamehameha Highway reopened after rail construction crew ruptures gas line”
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Trail and error construction team. Talk about the lowest bidder process.
Measure once, cut twice.
The gift that keeps on giving
Don’t they read those community service announcements, “Before digging, call 1-800-xxxxxx????” An 8 inch line is pretty big!!! I wonder which Union did it????
YES!! These are called “Make-Work-Projects”… It’s in the UNION MANUAL, Page #666.
union? No my friend in all likelihood some engineer laid out the excavation lines for the backhoe operator without know about the line. The operator was given the green light and hit the line that he never knew was there. Worry nice try.
No one knew about the line because it wasn’t supposed to be there.
But IIRC the city has started to use special equipment to map out these lines because the dwgs are no good.
Never the less the worker should dig more carefully. To cut through an 8 inch line he must really be whacking the ground hard.
Sorry Wiliki, Hawaii Gas marked the line in July and again in November in 2015, so HART is responsible for carelessness. This was just reported in KHON news.
Management calls the shots. Blame them.
Par for the course Nothing gets in the way of the toy choo choo. This includes due diligence and smarts. None here. Contractor and HART should be sued and forced to pay compensation to all affected by this incompetence and st*pidity.
Must be the high school reunion.
For the businesses that have to close because of this, will HART reimburse them for their loses?
HART gets their money from us.
I didn’t notice any mention of Rail in the story. Is SA not reporting who the contractor was, or what project, on purpose?
The contractor is solely responsible for identifying underground utilities. Even if this is a HART job, the contractor is responsible for all costs.
The contractor might pay it and if he does he will soon thereafter submit a change order to recoup any costs. Then HART will raise the price of rail because of delays caused by…..the lawsuits and Cayetano. Just you wait and see. What a joke.
This trench maybe to relocate lines. The worker should be more careful and not cut mislocated lines.
Halo the contractor’s negligence is not something that can be reimbursed through a change order
Seems this island can’t go a week (if that) without having some sort of traffic calamity!
Sheesh Snator, are you just figuring this out now??? Where have you been for the past decade?
Umm, stuck in traffic away from my computer.
I heard that dogs get stuck, too.
More time for me to sleep on the bus with your traffic calamity.
There is no excuse for this to have happened. Don’t they know what is underneath wherever they dig? Upsetting!
There are many gas lines, water lines and even sewer lines that do not show up on maps. They were installed prior to the requirement to submit as-built drawings and over time roadways have been realigned and benchmarks lost. Most contractors tone for the lines but some are still missed. Any contractor who claims he knows where all the utility lines are in urban Honolulu is ether a liar or a fool.
But the utilities should have this information somewhere even if the dwgs are not updated.
If you go to Hawaii Gas and ask about the location of a line, they will give you a drawing but the drawings always say “subject to verification by contractor”. All of the utilities and even the city make such disclaimers because in the field no one really knows the precise location of utilities.
Do you mean to say the Gas Co. had no idea they had an 8 inch gas distribution line under Kam Hwy? I find that difficult to believe, this wasn’t a small line running to a customer, it was the main distribution line for the entire area. More likely they thought the gas line was somewhere else, which is also unsettling. Unlike water and sewer lines, a gas line that size rupturing could have caused a huge explosion.
I’m confident with the technology that we have available to us today would have, should have, could have determined where these so-called unidentified lines are. Ever heard of “toning”?
This problem is endemic to organizations that own underground utilities.
I never seen a gas line about ground.
What kind of incompetent project does not know where the gas lines are???
In the heart of Honolulu, the gas, water, sewage and other utilities were laid out many, many decades ago and there are NO accurate maps for all of these utilities. If Rail construction crews cannot miss hitting gas lines on Kam Highway, garans they are going to hit utilities line in town because roads are narrower and the lines are more densely packed AND unless they are using ground penetrating radar for every inch they are going to exacavate, they are going to damage lines and cause major disruptions on a regular basis.
Some truth in what you stated. The Beretania and Kapahulu Streets repavement is on hold because the contractor encountered unforeseen gas lines beneath the surface. The city does not have records but in today’s technology, hitting a gas line can be avoided. The humor too is that this friend of mine, who is in a repaving company, said that if his company was hired, they would have known of the gas lines.
Utility map changes may not get put in the city maps but the changes are filed somewhere. If the changes are needed, they can be found. Looks like records are lost. Better just remap them out in the areas of concern.
Try Rail Project.
It seems like every time they start to “fix” something they just make it worse. Just plain carelessness. Does anyone know what they are doing?
Excellent – Close down Kamehameha and Farrington Highways, both ways forever. Don’t forget, HART rail transit will begin operation in 2020 promised Mayor Caldwell. With both east-west direction highways totally closed to all vehicular traffic, rail construction will be speeded up to complete all construction in an earlier time frame – say January 2018. Hooray! I say this because my wife and I are totally retired and don’t travel on those highways at all (only require the cross streets).
I’m with you, sukebesan!! Shut it all down. I really don’t care….My family’s been in Hawaii for 3 generations, but I’m leaving in a month and a half for good!….I don’t care what happens here anymore. It’s beyond hope.
I’m retired, and go out everyday to walk my dogs.
Nothing new here. How many times these guys just plow the roadways without knowing what’s below. I blame the supervisors. They should have a blueprint of the area they digging. Instead it’s oops; ahhh boss; guess what I hit one pipeline.
OMG I thought Obama came back. No Sam’s Club today.
Problem is the maps are not updated.
Incompetent rail contractor, its not enough that they reduce Kam Hwy to one lane in each direction every day with their bottle neck lane closures. Now they’ve shut Kam completely due to gross incompetence. The utility lines in the way of rail construction were supposedly relocated already, how do you miss or not know about an 8 inch main gas line? From Caldwell to Hart to Keiwit, all incompetent, no one is ever held accountable for incompetence that causes extreme inconvenience the general public.
This is not a “right to work State” you have to hire the incompetent Unions that vote for our career Democratic politicians. Case closed!!!
The dwgs are not updated for changes. It’s easy to hit something that isn’t on the dwg.
This area looks like a war zone now; it’s going to be a long night.
I can’t wait to see the water leaks, gas leaks, broken electric lines, etc. when thes guys start digging in town.
I can’t wait to see the water leaks, gas leaks, broken electric lines, etc. when thes guys start digging in town.
Back in 2004 Governor Lingle signed a bill into law requiring the UC to establish a one call center before digging by Jan 2006. Now here we are 9 years later and two gas lines have been damaged by contractors. Notice in the article there is no mention if the “Call Before You Dig” service was used. Guessing no one thought to make the call. http://www.callbeforeyoudig.org/hawaii/index.asp
Good point is HART is fully accountable for any damage done to public utilities due to shoddy construction management. Just keep writing those checks.
Who wants to call the center to hear a thick foreign accent on the other side of the phone?
If it’s not a water line or a sewer line, they break a gas line. Next time they’ll cut a buried electrical line or knock down a electric utility pole. But then, they don’t care because they get paid by the taxpayers anyway.
Get out your checkbook taxpayers. There goes another billion