Off the News: Voter service centers now open

Voter service centers statewide are now open daily except Sundays, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. through Aug. 7, and then 7 a.m.-7 p.m. on Primary Election Day, Aug. 8.

Day 1 was actually Monday for Hawaii and Maui counties. On Oahu and Kauai, the centers at Honolulu Hale, Kapolei Hale and the Piikoi Building in Lihue were closed in anticipation of the hurricane.

There’s lots of time to drop by and register — or even vote on a machine, if this vote-by-mail thing doesn’t work for you.

Help document king tides

A Waikiki lifeguard tower so undercut by erosion as to be in danger of falling down was removed last week. The apparent culprits: wave action and sea level rise. In this case, vulnerability was exacerbated by a nearby sea wall’s hardening of shoreline and “king” high tides that can deliver an extreme volume of wave wash.

Hawaii sees king tides, which occur in conjunction with new moons and full moons, in summer and winter months. The University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program’s Hawaii and Pacific Islands King Tides Project, which is focused on sea level rise, is asking volunteers to submit photos documenting the reach of the water levels during the next tidal peak, Aug. 17 and 18, seagrant.soest.hawaii.edu/.