Downed tree closes highway in Mountain View

A downed tree snarled traffic on Highway 11 in Mountain View for several hours Sunday morning.

The large eucalyptus was on the mauka side of the roadway, near milemarker 16, and fell across the street in the makai direction sometime before 10 a.m., said Rhea Lee, spokeswoman for Hawaii Electric Light Co.

“It fell on our transmission line, causing the pole to lean and the lines got slack,” she said.

Electric service was not impacted, however.

HELCO and county employees were still working to remove the tree as of Sunday afternoon.

Traffic bypassed the blockage on Highway 11 by using Ihope Road, via Kulani and Peck roads, but a stalled bus shut down that alternate route for some time, according to a release from the County of Hawaii.

“Motorists are advised to avoid the area and to use alternate routes if possible,” according to a county update around 1:10 p.m.

There was some concern that cruise ship tourists from the Carnival Legend who were traveling to see the lava lake atop Kilauea might miss the Legend’s 5 p.m. deadline to be back aboard before its 7 p.m. departure.

“It happened early enough that not many had gotten up there yet, and when the tree went down it stopped most traffic from going up to the volcano. But, we’ve got enough buses and minivans (on the Volcano side of the tree) that need to get back to the ship, that for a while it was pretty critical,” said Doug Arnott, owner of Arnott’s Lodge and Hiking Adventures.

“I called them (the Carnival Legend) a little while ago and said we could drive (the cruise ship passengers) over to Kona and drop them off at a bar or something over there,” he said.

Around 1:50 p.m., the roadway had been cleared enough to open a single lane that was alternating traffic flow in both directions.

Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.