Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Hawaii hurricane
HONOLULU — Hurricane Lane barreled toward Hawaii on Friday, dumping torrential rains that inundated the Big Island’s main city as people elsewhere stocked up on supplies and piled sandbags to shield oceanfront businesses against the increasingly violent surf.
The city of Hilo, population 43,000, was flooded with waist-high water. The National Guard and firefighters rescued six people and a dog from a flooded home. Five tourists from California were rescued from another home.
“There’s so much rain, the drainage is all saturated,” said Hawaii County Managing Director Wil Okabe. “We’re just letting nature take its course, getting water down to the ocean and responding to any rescues.”
As much as 35 inches of rain fell on the island in 48 hours. On the east side, crews responded to landslides.
Road closures “seem to be changing by the minute,” said Hawaii County Civil Defense spokesman Kelly Wooten. “They get cleaned up and there’s another landslide somewhere else.”
The Category 1 storm was expected to turn west today before reaching the islands and skirting Oahu — the state’s most populated island. Even without making a direct hit, the system threatened to bring a huge storm surge, high wind and heavy rain, forecasters said.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty in this forecast,” warned Federal Emergency Management Administrator Brock Long. “We hope all citizens are heeding the warning that local officials are putting out.”
Gov. David Ige told reporters Friday that, despite weakening, it’s still a powerful and potentially damaging storm and warned people to stay indoors. He said President Donald Trump called him to pledge full support from federal agencies.
Almost 16,000 homes and businesses on the islands lost electrical power Friday as the outer edges of the hurricane battered the islands, but service was restored to a portion of them, Hawaiian Electric spokesman Peter Rosegg said.
A brush fire on the island of Maui forced the relocation of a hurricane shelter in Lahaina as nearby residents were evacuated. Fire officials said the fire jumped a highway and was approaching a gas station. The flames spread to 300 acres, and a woman whose hands and legs were burned was flown to Honolulu, Maui County spokesman Rod Antone said.
A man posted a video on Instagram showing flames several stories high starting to envelop parked cars. Josh Galinato said he was trying to sleep when he smelled smoke in his apartment in Lahaina.
“I opened up my front door, and I just saw the fire spreading and coming downhill,” Galinato said. He and neighbors honked horns to alert others to the danger.
Joseph Azam, who is vacationing in Maui with family and friends, hopes that rain from the hurricane arrives before the flames do.
“Trying to figure which comes first, the fire or the rain,” said Azam, who’s from Oakland, Calif., and is staying at a hotel. “We’re praying the rain arrives soon.”
At 2 p.m. Hawaiian time, the center of the hurricane was about 120 miles south of Honolulu and spinning north at 2 mph. It had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph.
Police warned tourists to leave the world- famous Waikiki Beach ahead of the storm’s arrival in Honolulu, but dozens of people were still swimming and surfing.
A canal there is likely to flood, said Ray Alexander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“The canal has flooded in the past, and I believe it’s safe to say based on the forecast of rainfall it’s likely to flood again, the impacts of which we aren’t prepared to say at this time,” Alexander said.
Major flooding could damage 3,000 structures and cost more than $ 1 billion in repairs, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspaper reported, citing corps estimates.
So far, about 1,500 people, mostly on Oahu, were in emergency shelters, said Brad Kieserman of the American Red Cross.
In Honolulu, employees of the Sheraton Waikiki resort filled sandbags to protect the oceanfront hotel from surging surf.
Stores along Waikiki’s glitzy Kalakaua Avenue stacked sandbags along the bottom of their glass windows to prepare for flash flooding.
At the Hilton Hawaiian Village, guest Elisabeth Brinson said hotel staff left a notice that rooms will still have water and phone service, and a backup generator would power one elevator per building in the event of an electrical failure.
Brinson, a native of the United Kingdom now living in Denver, said many shops were closed, and those still open were frantic with people buying food, beer and water to take back to their rooms.
United Airlines canceled its Friday flights to and from Maui. The airline added two more flights from Honolulu to San Francisco on Thursday to help transport people off the islands.
Hawaiian Airlines canceled all Friday flights by its commuter carrier, Ohana by Hawaiian. Some Hawaiian Airlines flights from the West Coast to Maui were delayed, but flights from the mainland to other destinations in Hawaii are operating as normal, said airline spokesman Alex Da Silva.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency moved several container ships packed with food, water, generators and other supplies into the region ahead of Hurricane Hector, which skirted past the islands more than a week ago, Long said.
Warehouses were double-stocked with emergency supplies, and federal officials were working with grocers to ensure stores would have enough food.