Thursday’s wildly popular Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau big-wave surf tournament cost the city $5,800 for a cleanup crew, a dozen special buses, an advanced-life-support ambulance and to pump human waste — plus $1,033 for lifeguards who would have been working overtime anyway because of the 60-foot waves.
“There is no direct OT expense to the city for police, fire or lifeguards for the surf contest,” city spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Gov. David Ige on Friday proclaimed the previous day “Eddie Aikau Day.”
He called Thursday “the day Hawaii stood still.”
“I do think that the Eddie Aikau is one of those special things that is designed to preserve just an important part of our culture and what makes Hawaii special,” Ige said at a ceremony attended by two of Aikau’s siblings and Keone Downing, who won the event in 1990 and is the son of the tournament’s founder, George Downing.
An estimated 25,000 people crammed into Waimea Bay on Thursday, and untold others lined Kamehameha Highway to witness only the ninth “Eddie” to be held in the last 31 years. Sixty-foot waves resulted in highlight-reel rides and even more spectacular wipeouts.
| TAXPAYER TAB
City expenses related to the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau big-wave surf tournament on Thursday at Waimea Bay
$2,400
Overtime for cleanup crews from the Department of Parks and Recreation
$1,200
For an ambulance, paramedic and emergency medical technician
$1,200
Special buses to transport tournament watchers at Waimea Bay
$1,000
To pump septic tanks at Waimea Bay, Sharks Cove and Three Tables
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The meet’s organizers paid directly for the Hawaiian Water Patrol to assist the big-wave riders on personal watercraft and also paid for off-duty Honolulu police officers. Normal patrol officers were on duty on their regular salaries, Broder Van Dyke said.
Ten lifeguards — who worked the tower, an all-terrain vehicle and personal watercraft — came in early and stayed late at a cost of $1,033 for 46-1/2 hours of overtime “due to the surf conditions, not to staff the contest,” Broder Van Dyke said.
They also worked overtime Monday when the surf was so large that the state Department of Transportation closed Kamehameha Highway. Other North Shore lifeguards also worked overtime Monday and Thursday at surf sites such as Rock Piles, Broder Van Dyke said.
The ambulance, a paramedic and one emergency medical technician cost the city an additional $1,200, he said.
The city also spent $7,200 for a dozen buses to carry 3,000 passengers to and from Waimea Bay. But most riders paid cash instead of using bus passes, and the city recouped $6,000 from fare boxes, resulting in a net cost of $1,200, Broder Van Dyke said.
Some 22 Department of Parks and Recreation staff worked overtime at a cost of $2,400 to clean up Waimea Bay, along with nearby Sharks Cove and Three Tables. The city also spent $1,000 to pump septic tanks at all three sites Wednesday and Thursday.
Department of Education spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said 46 percent of students at nearby Sunset Elementary School — or 242 out of 451 students — were absent Thursday.
Asked whether they were likely watching the Eddie, Dela Cruz said, “Most of it has to be because it was very difficult to face the traffic and get to school.”
For instance, she said, “a handful” of teachers at Hauula Elementary School who live in town did not make it to the Windward school because of the traffic. Their classes were handled by substitute teachers who live in the area, she said.
“Traffic is hard out there,” Dela Cruz said.
On Thursday, DOE staff were cheering on one of their own, Aikau’s brother Clyde, who won the event in 1986 and surfed his last Eddie on Thursday at the age of 66.
Aikau works part time helping homeless families and homeless schoolchildren as a “homeless concerns liaison” in the Honolulu district.
Even though Clyde Aikau took some nasty tumbles, like many of the other big-wave riders, Dela Cruz said, “He’s an Aikau, so he’s a tough guy.”
The Eddie honors the original North Shore lifeguard who disappeared in 1978 when the voyaging canoe Hokule‘a capsized off of Molokai and Aikau took off on his surfboard to find help.
George Szigeti, president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, said in a statement that “the ‘Eddie’ perpetuates the memory and honor of the legendary Eddie Aikau and all that he meant to surfing and the renaissance of Hawaiian culture. His life-saving skills, bravery and gift for riding the biggest waves on the North Shore will never be forgotten.”
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Star-Advertiser reporter Michael Lasquero contributed to this report.
