U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii Commander Col. Rachel Sullivan, left, and Capt. Samuel White, commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, sign a memorandum of understanding during a ceremony at Kolekole Pass, Hawaii, March 4, 2026. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
LUALUALEI ANNEX, Hawaii — Officials with the Army, Navy and Hawaii emergency response agencies signed an agreement Wednesday aimed at streamlining future evacuations of residents from west Oahu over a mountain pass controlled by the military.
Representatives of the two services, the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, Honolulu Department of Emergency Management and Hawaii Department of Transportation signed a memorandum of understanding during a mountaintop ceremony on Kolekole Road.
The 10-year agreement focuses on the roughly 5-mile-long single lane that winds through Navy and Army property.
It is the only road that crosses over the Waianae Mountain Range that separates the western Waianae coast from the central plain of Oahu.
On the coastal side is the Navy’s Lualualei Annex, with the Army’s Schofield Barracks on the other.
The importance of the road — and management of it — was highlighted last summer by a tsunami warning arising from a massive earthquake in Russia.
Although a substantial tsunami wave ultimately did not arrive in Hawaii, the warning sparked evacuation of coastal areas on Oahu and Maui.
More than 400 vehicles transited Kolekole Road ahead of projected wave arrival, Rear Adm. Brad Collins, commander of Navy Region Hawaii, told the small ceremony audience assembled at Kolekole Pass.
“That was real world execution,” Collins said.
The road’s potential utility also became apparent in the wake of the August 2023 wildfire in Lahaina, Maui, which burned the town to the ground and killed 102 people.
Lahaina was wedged between the shoreline and steep mountains, as is the Waianae coast.
“This MOU commits all parties to allow civilian traffic to transit the pass in emergency, life-threatening situations,” Col. Rachel Sullivan, commander of Army Garrison Hawaii, told the audience. “And although Kolekole Pass has been successfully used in this manner several times without a written agreement, our sincere hope is that this agreement — one that transcends individual commanders and personalities — will give peace of mind to our community.”
The Army and Navy conducted an exercise Tuesday to rehearse civilian evacuation over the road, Capt. Samuel White, commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, told the audience.
“We have committed to making this into an annual exercise so we can keep working on the relationships and the flow of information when there is a need to activate the emergency pass,” White said.
“The fact of the matter is we are a part of the community, and we’re here to support it in any way we can,” White said. “And when the request comes through, like it did in July 2025, the response should be automatic.”
James Barros, administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, lauded the agreement as establishing “clear and unified procedures for requesting and opening this pass when the circumstances warrant it.”
Randal Collins, director of Honolulu Department of Emergency Management, offered up a brief meditation on the trials of island life.
“On Oahu, life is fragile, especially when it comes to disasters and emergencies, and there’s so many single points of failure and so many vulnerabilities that we have here on the island that it’s unparalleled back on the continent,” he said.
“So, it takes all of the strategies working together to make sure that we can be resilient and overcome those different challenges that will come up with hurricanes and tsunamis and wildfires and all the other hazards that we have to deal with.”
