We’re seeing the tail end of the king tides but they’re still high enough to make an impact.
We caught high water levels along the Ala Wai Canal earlier Sunday afternoon. It’s one of several places across the state dealing with the extra surge.
That once again includes Mapunapuna, where one business owner says it’s the worst he’s ever seen.
On Saturday, flood waters forced some businesses to close early.
“Saturdays are busy days for us,” said Ed Chergui of Pacific Auto Sales. “We couldn’t operate. We had to shut down, so all the businesses on Ahua Street had to close down.”
On Sunday morning, fish could be found in some of the pools on the street. Several hours later, water gurgled up the storm drain.
Matthew Gonser of the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program said tide predictions for August were lower than last month, but right now we’re seeing higher water levels.
“That additional anomaly is greater than last month,” said Gonser. “We are still experiencing some of oceanographic eddies some of the changes as a result of El Nino and El Nina patterns from 2015 and 2016.”
The owner of Island Demo tells us he’s had enough but doesn’t know what to do.
“I can’t do this anymore. This is really bad, and it’s going to get worse,” said John Leary of Island Demo.
We asked Leary if he plans on relocating his business.
“That’s a tough one because the business has a conditional usage permit from the city for what we do to get a place like that to operate is really difficult,” he said.
