I was in Oahu last week in a place that experienced 10 inches of rainfall in one day. I had never been in a situation where stepping outside felt like turning on a shower.
Well, this is not directly related to department of transportation is surprisingly helpful when it comes to providing information. Some states have absurd policies like a pseudo classification system for public projects like bridges as if the construction plans would tell you anything you couldn’t have seen with your own eyes or the bad guys are looking at rebar diagrams to find weak points. It’s just silly. HDOT on the other hand is quite laid-back. My assumption is that it’s because everyone is happy just living in a tropical paradise.
This is true we work with emergency management in Hawaii. Look up the Jones Act. All shipped goods end up having to hit the mainland before going to Hawaii which is a major contributor to increased costs of goods there.
"Myth #2: The Jones Act Raises Prices for Hawai‘i Residents.
However, a comprehensive 2020 study by Reeve & Associates and TZ Economics found that this is simply not true.
Their survey compared the prices of 200 consumer goods—including groceries, household items, clothing, and automobiles—at major retailers like Costco, Home Depot, Target, and Walmart in both Honolulu and Los Angeles. The results showed that prices in Hawai‘i were, on average, only 0.5% higher than on the mainland, a negligible difference that cannot be attributed to the Jones Act alone."
As a frequent visitor to Oahu, i stop by Costco on the way from the airport and i can see that most consumables including milk and meat is 30-50% more expensive than at Northern California Costco. This is representative across local supermarkets as well.
So its seems that this union is trying to minimise the impact of shipping on costs of everyday goods
"using online prices to compare food prices at Hawaii versus Los Angeles stores is problematic. A visit today to the Keeaumoku Street Walmart showed an 18-ounce box of Cheerios selling for $4.26, before tax, versus $3.64 for its listed online price, and a four-pack of 5-ounce cans of albacore tuna for $8.43 versus $6.74 online."
That is actually true, Keamoku Walmart does not pricematch to their online prices and the only way to get those prices is to place an pickup order and wait for several hours to pick up at those prices.
IlWU are crooks, but I thought jones act said intranational trade had to be by us flagged and manned ship. Not that foreign trade couldn't unload directly there on foreign ship or that it had to go to mainland first.
I've never heard of them having to go to the mainland before unloading in Hawaii. But if they do unload directly in Hawaii maybe they can't unload elsewhere without violating jones act so it's not worth the trip there instead of going to LA to unload and then a US flagged boat has to be used to get it to HI.
Land anywhere useful is also extraordinarily expensive and developing industry is commonly blocked on the thinnest of reasoning. Hawaiians even sabotaged the interisland ferries on some trumped up environmental concerns (they complained a couple people loaded sands or rocks) seemingly being scared shitless of their own people from other islands having cheap access (the tourists just fly). You can hardly develop any infrastructure that's not tourism or residential, and residential is also usually tough outside the big island.
I mean, he did sue a bunch of poor people to remove any possibility that they might make ancestral claims on or around his super abundance of land. It is in really bad taste and a testament to his lack of character.
It is truly tragic to see 5,500 people on the North Shore forced from their homes as the century-old Wahiawa Dam threatens to erase their livelihoods. One can only hope the evacuation orders were received in time to save what is most precious.
Sentiment aside, this is a textbook case of a natural audit. The Wahiawa Dam is a 120-year-old stranded asset that should have been liquidated decades ago; instead, it was kept on the books as a "high hazard" liability while the state and Dole Food Company bickered over a $20 million repair bill. Governor Green’s $1 billion damage estimate is simply the market finally collecting on 20 years of deferred maintenance and mispriced risk. Those living downstream without private insolvency insurance were effectively shorting gravity, and the "Kona Low" just called their margin. If the dam breaches, it isn't a disaster—it's the violent, overdue restructuring of an obsolete irrigation system. Nature is the only regulator that doesn't accept a settlement.
