"Natural disaster preparedness..." 'Glenn Mickens' (County Watchdog)

Glenn Mickens has lived on Kauai  with his wife Ruth for the last 26 years. Born July 26, 1930 in Wilmar, California, USA) was a pitcher in Major League Baseball. He pitched in four games (two of which were starts) for the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers. He also played for five years in Japan, from 1959 until 1963 for the Kintetsu Buffaloes. There, he compiled a record of 45–53 with a 2.54 ERA.  Glenn also  served in the Army for 2 years and coached baseball at UCLA for 25 years. 
Last but not least Glenn would really like to see Kaua'i give the county manager style of Government a chance.

Mr. Mickens is locally known
as one of Kauai county's
political watchdogs
and Nitpickers...
Mahalos Glenn!

Natural disaster preparedness

We hear over and over how well prepared Kauai is in case of a Tsunami, Hurricane or any other natural disaster.

With all due respect to Civil Defense and the people who run it, I beg to differ with this assumption. 

We basically have one highway that runs around our island and when there is a disruption in this road--traffic accident, fires that cause smoke across the road, or a washout like the Koloko Dam break caused a few years ago, transpiration stops.

Even without a disaster, traffic on our roads gets worse and worse and with more population, more vehicles AND more signals the problem can only be exacerbated. 

About 14 years ago, thanks to Senator Lehua Fernandes Salling and director of Transportation Steve Kyono the Kapa'a By-pass road was built. Since it was an existing cane haul road no EA or EIS was necessary and it was started and finished in 8 months and it has been a success!

We have these same cane haul roads all over our island that were thoughtfully put there to allow the sugar cane trucks to operate without slowing down for signals or other vehicles on our main highway. This idea and action was truly one of pro activity and is badly needed on our island today. check out the cane Roads on Kauai below- 
Must use link for copyright purposes-please click on!
https://www.google.com/search?q=cane+roads+on+Kauai&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiG69bww_nOAhUIz2MKHTAQBwsQsAQILg&biw=1024&bih=677#imgdii=5eFtEqfNdfxbwM%3A%3B5eFtEqfNdfxbwM%3A%3BsDFzig-nh8RK2M%3A&imgrc=5eFtEqfNdfxbwM%3A
Thus my point is that before we are "prepared" for any type of disaster we desperately need to make use of these cane haul roads. And not only for disaster preparedness but to address the traffic problems that we have been ignoring for way too long. 

This ignored problem may not be a Civil Defense issue only but for the safety and welfare of our citizens it should certainly be at the top of their and the administrations and councils list.

P.S.
Check out Glenn's Wikipedia page;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Mickens

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The Sunrise as seen from my front door!
 "always take time
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Hana Hou, (Encore)