Hawaii, for all its lustrous sunshine and beauty, is at times at the mercy of the weather systems swirling around its isolated mid-Pacific position.

Monday afternoon was one of those times, when 1-1/2 to 2 feet of rain pelted Maui and pushed one of its aging reservoir dams to overflowing. Residents of Haiku and other communities near Kaupakalua Dam were ordered to evacuate when the stormwaters overtopped it, and the result of that deluge heavily damaged or destroyed a half-dozen homes. Kaupakalua Bridge also was damaged, and Peahi Bridge was taken out by the flood.

The rainstorm moved up the chain; continued flooding on Tuesday led to more evacuation orders in Haleiwa, from Joseph P. Leong Highway to the ocean.

But it was Maui that left everyone with a sense of deja vu for past horrors, as well as dread for what could come before long. What they were remembering was Kauai’s Kaloko Dam failure of 2006, a tragedy that killed seven people, plus a close call in 2018 when the Nuuanu Dam was nearly filled to capacity by tropical stormwaters.

Hawaii has many deteriorating privately owned dams that the state has been unable to regulate thoroughly. And largely due to climate change, the extreme weather events that can push them to the brink of failure are happening with alarming frequency.

The classic problem of understaffing in the state Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) engineering division has curbed its capacity for inspections, a problem that needs immediate attention.

In Maui’s case, Kaupakalua Dam was living on borrowed time. According to a DLNR statement released on Tuesday, the 138-year-old earthen dam had been the subject of a deficiency notice leading its owners to schedule it for demolition this summer.

The dam is owned by the East Maui Irrigation Co. and Mahi Pono Holdings Inc., and was part of the island’s legacy agricultural industry. Like many of the 130 state-regulated dams, it has not been kept up, simply put.

Kaupakalua had been cited specifically for failure to have installed a real-time reservoir water-level gauge, with readings accessible online by May 30, 2020, as state law requires, DLNR officials said; the owners then applied for a permit to have it removed.

How many more of the dams are in violation of this law? Without adequate inspections, it’s impossible to know, though it’s easy to make some frightening assumptions.

One reason for unease about this was a 2019 investigation by The Associated Press showing that virtually all of the islands’ regulated dams is considered high hazard, meaning that if they were to fail, they could cause fatalities. And of that number, 59 were considered to be in poor or unsatisfactory condition.

Like Kaupakalua, Kaloko Reservoir was an earthen structure — one of its walls collapsing during heavy rains, sending water and mud rushing downhill. It took many by surprise because heavy rains are part of the Kauai scene.

In the intervening years, environmentalists and policymakers have become increasingly worried about climate change. That means, among other things, that Hawaii’s people must be prepared for weather events to turn ugly with little notice.

Flash flooding, for example, is one hazard for which residents and visitors alike should be educated, through clear signage and other means using technology, social media and alerts.

It’s time for the state to find the resources to ramp up its enforcement of safety regulations around dams and storm-flooded streams.

That’s a tough challenge in these times, but the stark reality is that Hawaii can’t afford to play a game of chance with the weather. People surely will come out on the wrong side of that contest.