The tsunami warning created massive gridlock across urban Honolulu, but luckily the damaging waves didn’t materialize.
I’m not talking about the scene in Hawaii yesterday.
I’m thinking back nearly 40 years to the tsunami warning on May 7, 1986, an event Meda and I have referred to since as the Pseudonami. Large earthquake, with major potential for a destructive series of waves that eventually turned out to be much less than feared.
I was working at the time for Common Cause, which had a small office on the second floor of what was then referred to as the Armed Service YMCA building (harkening back to its pre-WWII history), later known as the Hemmeter building, and now the No. 1 Capitol District Building. Right across Alakea Street from the State Capitol,
Meda was still splitting her time between teaching 1/2-time at Honolulu Community College and spending the other half in a research position on the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus.
This was one of her HCC days. Our routine was that Meda would drop me off downtown in the morning on her way to HCC, and then pick me up at the end of the day. We assumed our regular routine would work as Honolulu evacuated.
It was about 1.6 miles from the campus to my location by the capitol, usually a 10-minute drive. But as happened yesterday, Pseudonami evacuation created massive traffic jams and gridlock across the city. It ended up taking several hours for Meda to get to downtown.
That was nearly 40 years ago, and in the intervening years there has been a lot of discussion of techniques for avoiding or controlling gridlock that should be part of emergency preparedness planning. But perhaps that discussion hasn’t trickled down into our state and local planning.
Here’s a link to one video showing yesterday’s traffic gridlock in Honolulu, and there are many others to be found online.
Since we’re traveling, I’ve been scouring news reports looking for evidence that any traffic abatement strategies were deployed yesterday as part of the emergency plan. So far, I haven’t found any mentions.
Please share a comment if you observed any actions of this kind.
I just took a look at the State of Hawaii Integrated Preparedness Plan 2025-2026 (January 31, 2025). The word “traffic” does not appear in it. Various sub-plans discuss the category termed “Transportation,” but this focuses on organizing the resources needed to rebuild roads and bridges, and get airports and harbors functioning as soon as possible.
I asked ChatGPT to summarize recommendations for planning to deal with gridlock. Here’s its answer.
Actionable Best Practices
1. Use zoned evacuation orders to reduce surge traffic.
2. Implement contraflow lane reversals on controlled-access roads when feasible.
3. Block inbound traffic to full evacuation zones.
4. Activate emergency alternate routes or bypass roads in bottleneck areas.
5. Reprogram traffic signals for evacuation priority.
6. Send urgent alerts and encourage walking if possible.
7. Avoid fueling during evacuee movement in critical areas.
8. Direct vertical/walking evacuations in high-density zones where vehicle use can be minimized.
9. Deploy law enforcement personnel to manage intersections and enforce evacuation routing.
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An additional suggestion for the next emergency:
Do not release all county and state workers at the same time. That greatly and unnecessarily increased the gridlock! There was no reason to release workers at 2:30 or 3:00 with the tsunami expected to arrive after 7:00!
At some point it was announced that two-way mauka-makai streets would be reconfigured to one-way mauka bound. Not sure who decided/announced that – maybe city transportation director Roger Morton. Overall, I thought communicating alerts, cautions, revised operating procedures, etc. all went really well. But we were among those who were able to stay home and didn’t experience the mess first hand.
1994 or so I got caught driving out of Cooke St office.
It may take 100 deaths to mobilize govt abatement.
Now even on Maui appears they still had problems moving out
Ahh..just take the position we are too old to worry it anymore?
And if there is yet another reason to build that Ala Wai Bridge near Ala Wai Elementary across to Waikiki, this is one of the better ones.
About 50 years ago, about 1986 working in Honolulu Hale, a Tsunami Watch was issued and City and State delayed releasing employees till 4:30 PM to sheer grid lock.
City Council Defense pledged ton ever again allow this to happen.
HNL City failed EPICLY YESTERDAY! Hawaii’s greatest threat of EQ generated Tsunami is from the Big Island who holds world record of an EQ 10. Oahu has 25 minutes before impact!
Random things I caught wind of re:the traffic yesterday during the warning:
• I think they opened kolekole pass (located near Schofield, 1st time they allowed civilians to access this bypass)
• Oprah has a bypass road on her property on Maui that was not opened/allowed access by civilians evacuating in that area, apparently it’s an ideal conduit.. how these private land owners blatantly restrict our land like this is infuriating.
• I did not think to check on the status of the rail, yesterday…Anyone know if it was running or actively being used to shuttle people &/or assist in some type of evacuation efforts ?
I’m very grateful that I live in Kailua and that evacuating was no big deal in regards to traffic. I don’t understand why there would be any surprise about complete gridlock happening in town, though. I’m wondering if they could use large events as “dry runs” on directing traffic out of Waikiki, Ala Moana, Kakaako, Downtown areas instead of waiting for a natural disaster to show exactly how unprepared we are.
Since 1986, we have way more vehicles and people. This time with Internet and cell service the early warning alarms on your phone and sirens gave the public more than ample time to get home. It was like early morning traffic going both ways – except way more. Around 3:30pm getting unto Kahekili Hwy heading north, both directions was bumper to bumper. From the circle fronting Hygienic Store the traffic to town was stop and move a little all the way to Ka’a’awa School. What was disappointing is 7Eleven Ka’a’awa was already closed. Kahaluu 7Eleven stayed open for gas and store operations. People around here remember those things.
By 7pm, the vehicle traffic at Punalu’u both directions was gone. Of course you have the ones who had to work late – maybe one vehicle every other minute and then nothing and start again every other minute.
Did the system work? Yes. Now is the time to fine tune what we learn and implement changes for when the next one comes. That in includes traffic light sequencing that allows more vehicles through. Let’s hope the governments make immediate adjustments.
Many of our Kupunas and adults did the things to prep for emergencies. Many hands who helped are gone.
Besides it was good practice on what we need to get done before the next one.
Tv did reveal mauka / makai traffic signals were adjusted for priority.
Also asked ppl to stay in place if not in inundation zone
I agree on refueling during evacuations. I had a 1/4 tank and at the first “watch” warning I drove to Laie where there was a line, but by the time I refueled and went to Foodland the South bound traffic was backed up to Malaekahana. We evacuated from Malaekahana to Kahuku, above the hospital, at 6:30pm. There was no one on the road at 6:30pm which was eerie. From here on I will keep my truck at half tank from now on.