What’s Working On Kauai, What’s Not, And Where Visitors Can’t Go

Saturday morning on Kauai, the recovery continues, but getting to normal still depends heavily on where you are and what you’re trying to do. More electricity is back, communications are returning in places, and some businesses are moving closer to normal, while cleanup, repairs, and service disruptions continue across the island. For example, Costco lost power again Friday morning, and lights flickered in Lihue.

We still aren’t doing much driving unless we need to. People we know who live here are saying the same thing, and one reason became obvious Friday when travel between Lihue and the South Shore took roughly two hours in each direction because of debris cleanup, tree work, and utility repairs. That distance is around 12 miles. Even when the highway is technically open, getting around can remain far from normal, and a four-hour round trip between Lihue and Poipu is just that.

Two days ago, we told Hawaii News Now that visitors should wait, and based on the conditions then, we’d say the same thing again. Things are improving, but we still wouldn’t describe this as a normal Kauai vacation week.

Getting around has become its own recovery problem.

Basic services remain spotty. Trash collection is one we haven’t seen return where we live. Spectrum internet appears to be returning in places after its widespread outage, while Beat of Hawaii’s Hawaiian Telcom fiber-optic internet never went down through Lowell, and Starlink has also remained available and popular.

Cell service was less dependable. Voice was spotty, and mobile data was almost nonexistent most of the time after the hurricane, just when people needed to find open stores, gas, road information, and updates.

The Kauai emergency information system also had problems.

Lowell exposed another vulnerability that totally surprised us. Kauai’s two designated emergency radio stations both experienced serious power problems during the hurricane, with KONG going off the air for a period and KKCR reduced to very limited coverage.

That’s huge on an island where residents have been routinely told to keep a battery-powered radio available for emergencies. When internet, mobile data, and electricity are compromised at the same time, radio was supposed to be one of the systems that always stays up.

For us, some of the most useful information during and after Lowell came a different way. Neighbors, utility crews, businesses, readers, and Coconut Wireless often told us what was happening faster than any centralized source ever could.

Lihue Airport can look different within hours.

Friday was already a very different day at LIH than Thursday. Early reports showed power back, self-tag machines working again, air conditioning restored, and both regular and TSA PreCheck lines moving far better than the day before. We still saw a long line early Friday, but by afternoon conditions appeared substantially improved.

Thursday had been extraordinary. As we reported in our firsthand coverage of the Lihue Airport security meltdown, BOH readers reported waits of five to more than seven hours after LIH was reduced to a single generator backup that wasn’t functioning normally, while MyTSA continued showing a wait of only 15 minutes.

More than 250 pizzas were flown by helicopter from Honolulu to Kauai on Thursday to feed about 1,000 people, including some travelers at LIH. By late Friday morning, HDOT said TSA wait times had fallen to as little as nine minutes, and passengers could return to normal airport arrival times, a remarkable turnaround from just the day before.

Recovery still depends on where you are.

Power restoration has clearly accelerated, and many more homes and businesses now have electricity than they did earlier this week. Others are still waiting, even as outside crews and equipment arrive to help KIUC rebuild damaged parts of the electric grid.

North Shore communities face a different problem. A boil-water notice is in effect for Wainiha, Haena and Kilauea, while residents in some areas continue to work through flooding and infrastructure damage that has little resemblance to what people may be seeing elsewhere on Kauai. Visitor access to Kauai’s end-of-the-road North Shore also remains restricted. The Wainiha double bridges are open for local resident traffic only, while Haena Beach Park and Haena State Park remain closed. Ke’e and the Kalalau Trail are unavailable, and both county and state parks across Kauai remain closed for now.

Ocean Safety is also continuing to advise against swimming and other ocean recreation while the island-wide brown-water advisory remains in effect. Conditions here can be dramatically different within a relatively short drive. What someone sees at an operating resort or shopping center may bear little resemblance to what another community is dealing with only miles away.

Kitty stayed, but not as though nothing happened.

Longtime BOH reader and our friend Kitty has been coming to Kauai regularly for about 30 years and is on the island for two weeks on this trip. She and her husband stayed through Lowell, lost power from Monday evening until Thursday afternoon, and were still waiting for their pool to reopen when she wrote to us.

They aren’t leaving early. Part of that is practical because replacing their flights to the East Coast isn’t easy, but Kitty also wants to spend money with businesses that are open while making a point of staying out of the way of cleanup and recovery.

“The wind Monday night was unbelievable,” she told us. She also wrote that “Kauai does not look like it did,” with beach and pool plans still uncertain and even ordinary drives carrying reminders of what happened.

Kitty’s approach probably says more about this week on Kauai than any blanket advice to come or stay away. She’s supporting businesses that are ready for customers without pretending the island around them is already back to normal because it is not.

The question of whether visitors should come right now has become surprisingly contentious. Some residents and business owners are urging people to return and support businesses that are open, while others say Kauai still needs fewer people on the roads and drawing on services that remain stretched. We’re seeing the same disagreement in BOH comments and across social media.

Kauai’s cleanup is far from over.

Community food distributions are continuing around Kauai while restoration work proceeds and some neighborhoods remain far behind others. Recovery was further complicated Wednesday night when a major fire damaged the Kapule Building at the Lihue Civic Center, shutting down the DMV, Real Property, planning, building and zoning, Solid Waste, sewer-billing, and Kauai County IT services until further notice.

No injuries were reported, and the cause remains under investigation. Officials are also looking at whether an electrical surge when power was restored may have played a role. We’re hearing that the IT area did not have a Halon fire-suppression system and that water used to fight the fire caused extensive additional damage to computer equipment, potentially making the impact far greater than the list of closed public counters may suggest.

Governor Josh Green initially said Lowell’s damage would exceed $400 million, but estimates are already rising substantially. We’ve heard numbers closer to $1 billion, and that no longer sounds far-fetched. Cotality, a risk analytics company, now estimates insured losses alone at $500 million to $1 billion, with most expected on Kauai, while another disaster modeler has put overall damage around $600 million, with the possibility of reaching $1 billion.

Lead Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii at Kokee before Lowell.

By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.

Some of the most meaningful parts of Hawaii are the ones visitors walk right past without knowing they are there. We’ve spent nearly 20 years finding them firsthand for BOH as full-time Hawaii residents reporting on travel, culture, and island life, and telling you what they mean for your trip. Join us →