Hurricane Lane weakens as it approaches Hawaii
Islands face flooding as Category 1 storm brings heavy rain, winds
HONOLULU— Hurricane Lane weakened Friday as it headed toward the Hawaiian islands, but it still brought torrential rains that immersed a city in waist-deep water and forced people to flee flooding homes, while others jumped off seawalls with boogie boards into the turbulent ocean.
As many dealt with flooding and even brush fires, swimmers and surfers ignored warnings from authorities and plunged into powerful waves at Oahu’s famed Waikiki Beach, which was closed.
Emergency officials said repeatedly over loudspeakers: “Please get out of the water! It’s very dangerous!” Honolulu’s mayor pleaded with tourists that they were putting themselves in danger as the storm churned closer.
The National Weather Service downgraded the storm to a Category 1 with winds of 119 to 153 kilometres per hour as it headed north toward the islands. It was expected to veer west, skirting the islands, but still threatened to bring heavy rains and gusty winds, meteorologist Gavin Shigesato said.
A hurricane watch for Hawaii’s most western inhabited islands, Kauai and Niihau, was downgraded to a tropical storm watch. Still, the hurricane centre warned that Lane’s slow movement increases the potential for prolonged heavy rainfall that’s expected to cause major flash flooding and landslides.
The outer bands of the hurricane dumped as much as one metre of rain in 48 hours on the mostly rural Big Island. The main town of Hilo, population 43,000, was flooded Friday with waist-high water as landslides shut down roads.
Margaret Collins, 69, woke up Thursday night to the sound of moving water in her Hilo backyard. “So I got up out of bed and looked out my bedroom window and saw water three feet high gushing past my window,” she said. “And that’s when I realized I was standing in water.”
She called a neighbour for help, who crawled through bushes to bring her out of the house, half-carrying her as she clutched a plastic bag with medication.
Elsewhere on the Big Island, the National Guard and firefighters rescued six people and a dog from a flooded home, while five California tourists were rescued from another house.
As flooding hit the Big Island, brush fires broke out in areas of Maui and Oahu susceptible to flames.
Some residents in a shelter on Maui had to flee when a fire got too close and another forced people from their homes.