KALIHIWAI — Imagine Adam Frye’s night life. An albizia tree limb comes crashing down, breaking his slumber, and he sits up in bed and waits to hear the familiar sound of screeching vehicle tires indicating that the branch has ended
KALIHIWAI — Imagine Adam Frye’s night life.
An albizia tree limb comes crashing down, breaking his slumber, and he sits up in bed and waits to hear the familiar sound of screeching vehicle tires indicating that the branch has ended up on Kuhio Highway and presents a danger to motorists.
“Every day we hear branches break,” and on more than one occasion he has had to go out onto the highway near his Kalihiwai home and remove branches from the busy highway, Frye said.
A branch crashed through the windshield of a friend’s truck while the friend was driving on the highway, and only his inner strength kept him from panicking and, perhaps, getting into a bad accident, Frye said.
“We drive through it every day, and it’s a scary stretch of highway,” said Frye, who works at Princeville.
In the 30-plus years that his mother-in-law, Gloria Estrella, has lived on the property, she can’t remember the trees ever being taller, some topping 100 feet.
“That’s the main concern — the branches,” said Frye, adding that whole trees have been uprooted in “small-kine wind” events, and he has concerns for the safety of his family.
The natural pruning exacted by Hurricane ‘Iniki in 1992 helped some, but some manmade intervention is necessary also, he said.
This week, he is getting his wish as a state Department of Transportation-contracted landscaping crew is cutting back some of the trees deemed dangerous in a survey conducted last week.
“Seriously, this is a blessing,” Frye said in a telephone interview last week.
“The last few months, we’ve been pressing the tree issue,” which has been impacting Estrella’s photovoltaic solar system as well as causing family members some sleepless nights.
“The albizia tree (which is what all the tress in question are) is an invasive, non-native plant,” Frye said in an e-mail. “It grows out of control, and the limbs are extremely brittle.
“The trees have gotten so big that we hear branches break every day now,” and it’s “only a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt or, worse, dies.”
A branch fell and smashed the hood and windshield of a family vehicle on the property, but no one was injured, he said. “We’re trying to get some attention up here.”
Work began Monday and is expected to be completed by Friday, and only on Friday will there need to be any lane closures, said Tammy Mori, state Department of Transportation spokesperson.
“Safety is our department’s top priority,” said Mori. “We also want to preserve the aesthetic beauty along this stretch of the highway. We value the community’s input and wanted to reach a collaborative decision before we move forward with pruning and removing trees.”
There will be no work done Thursday due to the King Kamehameha Day holiday. The other days, work is expected to be done from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Last week, DOT officials, along with area residents, an independent arborist, and representatives from the Sierra Club and The Kaua‘i Outdoor Circle, surveyed the area on the north side of the highway.
The group identified about 60 to 70 albizia trees that might pose a danger to motorists.
“The Kaua‘i Outdoor Circle wants to keep Kaua‘i clean, green, beautiful and in this case safe,” said Maureen Murphy, president of The Kaua‘i Outdoor Circle and a certified arborist and registered consulting arborist.
“Therefore, we will be working with the DOT’s arborist to remove any branches or trees that are hazardous. In addition, we will be focusing on replanting canopy trees to replace the albizia,” she said in a release.
“These new trees will create the same affect, have stronger branches, and be easier to maintain,” she said.
The emergency removal and pruning of trees this week is the first of a three-phase plan for long-term maintenance of the stretch of highway, to include replanting to keep the “tree-tunnel” feel of the highway passage, Mori and Murphy said.
Albizia is one of the fastest-growing trees known to man, said Steve Nimz, an independent arborist, certified arborist, project arborist and certified risk-assessor.
When the trees reach the heights they have in Kalihiwai, up to 130 feet, they give up structural integrity and have a “high potential of branch failure,” Nimz said.
A single row of albizia stretching between 400 and 500 feet along the highway are the ones drawing most of the attention this week, he said.
