Kauai residents ignore government, rebuild roads on own

When floods washed out bridges, roads, and facilities at the Polihale State park on the island of Kauai in December, residents were told by the state it would take months to rebuild, if not longer, and then began to hold endless meeting just to decide what to do.

But those residents depended on visitors to the park for their income and couldn’t wait. What they did is downright inspiring and quite possibly a model for the future. They banded together and did it themselves.

Beginning in late March, business leaders and local residents organized to take the situation into their own hands. From food donated by local restaurants to heavy machinery offered by local construction companies, a project that was originally forecast to cost millions and take months (if not years) was nearly completed in a matter of weeks, all with donated funds, manpower, and equipment.

This was not just a park clean-up, but a significant undertaking involving bridge-building, reconstructing rest rooms, and use of heavy equipment to clear miles of flood-damaged roadways.

The residents of Kauai may have just shown us our future. People banding together to get stuff down. Screw politics and ignore the governments.