Hawaii's Bridges: Wailuku River Bridges

April 2001 (19.728 Degrees, -155.087 Degrees) Wailuku River Bridges

Looking upstream at the Wailuku River from the Hawaii Belt Road Bridge, a 422 ft long five span steel girder bridge built in 1950. In the foreground is the single span Puueo Arch Bridge. Behind it is a two span concrete haunched T girder bridge. Behind that is a waterfall.

The Wailuku River (at 28.1 miles) is the longest river in Hawaii, it has the largest discharge, and it accounts for a quarter of all the river drownings ('Wai' means water and 'Luku' means destruction in Hawaiian). The river runs between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa and is an important landmark for geologists studying the island's growth. The river is used to generate electricity.

In 1946, the Aleutian Islands tsunami came up the Wailuku River, destroying the railway truss bridge near the shore. However, the Puueo Bridge survived the tsunami.

Hawaii's Bridges: Wailuku River Bridges by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.