HONOLULU -- Sen. Daniel Inouye spent Monday touring University of Hawaii buildings wrecked by the recent devastating Manoa floods.

Inouye said he expects damages to top $50 million and is urging UH officials not to "lowball" damage estimates when seeking federal money.

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Inouye joined state senators and university officials for a tour by golf carts of buildings damaged by the Halloween eve flood.

After the flood, the Hamilton Library basement was flooded and its contents were destroyed.

BMS Catastrophe, the firm that worked on the Pentagon after Sept. 11, 2001, was called in to conduct the cleanup.

The Biomedical Sciences building that was awash in mud after the flood is now a beehive of cleaning activity.

University President David McClain said damages could exceed the state's $25 million insurance ceiling.

"The estimates are way below. It is much higher than what we have heard. I would say over $50 million," McClain said.

Inouye also said he hopes Manoa property owners will offer easements to land they own on the stream to allow repairs to prevent similar floods in the future.

Tom and Karen Otaguro own a section of Manoa stream behind their house. They were hit hard by the stream's rising waters.

"Of course, in order to improve it, if we need to give the easements we will," Tom Otaguro said.

Inouye heads back for Washington Thursday. Before he finished his tour of the repair work, he repeated the repairs are going to cost a lot more than he had originally been told.