The Kauaʻi County Council has officially accepted an estimated $100,000 donation in the form of information technology services to help restore county computer systems damaged in the Kapule Building fire.
“This is the first time a fire has caused this level of damage to the County’s IT infrastructure,” said Alden Aldaya with the County of Kauaʻi.
As the county works to restore services to Kauaʻi and faces ongoing challenges, the county council members approved the donation.
The donation from Constructive Construction Management includes services from company employees to assess the county’s technology infrastructure, develop recovery plans, and help restore systems affected by the fire and subsequent water and carbon damage.
The fire broke out shortly before 8:50 p.m. on Sept. 9 at the civic center, pausing many county services, including all DMV in-person and counter services at the Līhuʻe Civic Center and at the Kapaʻa DMV.
According to a Sept. 23 request from the Office of the Mayor, the donated work includes assistance with Active Directory and identity infrastructure recovery and reconstruction, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager and Data Domain backup recovery, VMware infrastructure and virtual server recovery, as well as related technical consultation, coordination and disaster recovery services.
The County Council approved acceptance of the donation after the services had already been provided, according to information provided during the Wednesday County Council meeting.
According to the county, donations of professional services to help recover from an incident are infrequent. Typically, the Council approves donations to the County fairly often, mostly equipment and materials.
During the council discussion, Councilmember Felicia Cowden asked if the “computers werenʻt actually burned up, but were destroyed by water and carbon, not by the fire?” The answer was yes.
Staff has been attempting to recover physical servers and determine which equipment can be returned to service.
Council officials also added that the county is working to move additional systems to cloud-based infrastructure, although council members were told that details about the location of recovered equipment and the status of some systems were still being determined.
While the IT damage is being repaired, some measures have been taken to help residents who can’t get needed DMV service.
On Sept. 24, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration implemented a three-month waiver allowing the state and Kauaʻi County Division of Motor Vehicles to extend commercial driver’s licenses and commercial learner’s permits that expired or came due for renewal on or after Sept. 9.
The waiver also exempts motor carriers that could not complete required annual motor vehicle record reviews because of the DMV closure.
The waiver took effect on Sept. 9 and remains in effect until 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 8, 2026, or 14 days after Kauaʻi DMV services are restored, whichever occurs first.
