Jamie O’Brien and Mason Ho shared their first-person perspectives on how the historic flooding unfolded on Oahu. Photo: Screenshot//@everythinginhawaii
Jamie O’Brien was flying back to Oahu the night that the second wave of Kona low storms pounded the island. Speaking on the Jamie O & Mason Ho Show, he said his wife had warned him that the road was closed at Waimea, so he tried to get home around the east side of the island to reach his home on the North Shore. Police had closed that road, too.
“I’m looking out in front of my truck and I just see water over the road so deep, and the cops (were) like, ‘Oh, sorry, bro. We’re not going to be letting anybody through until this settles down,’” O’Brien said.
He decided to try his luck on the main route through the center of the island, only to hit roadblock after roadblock.
“There were waterfalls coming off the weirdest places,” O’Brien said. “I’ve never seen water there.”
Eventually, O’Brien found a back road that was open and made it to Haleiwa at 3:30 a.m. — one of the last people to get in before roads were all closed. What he discovered was pure chaos: people driving around in four feet of water with a tractor conducting rescues and cop cars overturned.
“It (was) destruction,” he said.
Unable to get home, O’Brien said he stayed on the road to warn other motorists not to try to cross the deep waters.
“You ever heard of, turn around, don’t drown? This is the time,” he said. “The next morning, we wake up, and the whole town’s just flooded. So gnarly.”
Ho said that he wasn’t in Oahu during the floods. He called his family to make sure everyone was okay and rushed back to the island.
“When I started seeing (the flooding), I’m like, ‘Okay, I got to get home and go help,’” said Ho. “I got to get back and just be a part of the help. I don’t even feel comfortable being away.”
Neither Ho nor O’Brien said their homes were significantly damaged.
O’Brien said he was proud of how the community came together to help, and felt obligated to use his platform to spread the word for cleanup efforts.
“The community came together the next few days,” O’Brien said. “We started helping and shoveling mud and supporting our friends.”
“I think one of our jobs here is, with a voice and a platform, to let you guys know that we went through a devastating time, and we’re here to support our community,” he added.
