Ka Loko Reservoir
lake in Kauai County, Hawaii, United States of America
Ka Loko Reservoir is a reservoir created by an earthen dam on the island of Kauaʻi, Hawaii. It is located on the north side of the island at 22°10′39″N 159°22′39″W. Waters flow from Ka Loko Reservoir down to Waiakalua Reservoir, Waiakalua Stream and down to the Pacific Ocean.
Ka Loko (sometimes spelled Kaloko) is notable because its dam burst on March 14, 2006. The dam burst was preceded by unusually heavy rain. The flood from the dam failure raced downhill through a ravine east of the town of Kilauea, Hawaii, with a wall of water reported to be between 20 and 70 feet (6.1 and 21.3 metres) high and 200 feet (61 m) wide. The flood destroyed several homes and killed seven people, including a toddler and a pregnant woman.
An independent civil investigation attributed several possible conditions and practices that may have led to the dam failure: The State of Hawaii did not adequately inspect the dam and did not have enough dam inspectors to cover all of the antiquated dams in the state. The owner of the dam (James Pflueger) performed grading operations near the dam without permits and may have filled in the emergency spillway for the dam. Neither the current nor prior owners of the dam maintained the dam adequately.Finally, the County of Kauaʻi knew about the unpermitted grading operation, but did not enforce a stop-work order.
On November 21, 2008, James Pflueger was indicted for manslaughter and reckless endangerment in relation to the dam failure.
“Ka Loko Reservoir” enters the record as lake in Kauai County, Hawaii, United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Loko, Reservoir and lake can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1282100. The first chronological checks are 2006 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ka Loko Reservoir” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.