Fear of more flooding rises in stormy Hawaii
KONA, Hawaii — A powerful hurricane that already has dumped more than two feet of rain on parts of the Big Island is expected to keep soaking the state through the weekend, exacerbating dramatic flood conditions as residents hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.
Officials downgraded Hurricane Lane to a Category 2 on Friday but say threats of landslides, storm surge and flooding remain a major concern because the storm has slowed in speed. The crawl along the island chain’s edge gives the hurricane more time to unleash rain over Hawaii before it weakens and makes an expected break to the west Saturday.
“This is going to be a marathon-based event,” FEMA Administrator William “Brock” Long said in a news conference Friday. “The bottom line is we’re going to see torrential rains occur for the next 48 to 72 hours and we hope that all the citizens within Hawaii are heeding the warnings that local and state officials are putting out.”
The storm has caused power outages, felled trees and shut down roads across the state.
Drone video of Hilo on the east side of Hawaii’s largest island shows large swaths of the area covered in brown, murky floodwaters. Some parts of the Big Island have seen more than 31 inches of rain, more than double the 12 inches reported Thursday.
Rainfall totals could top 40 inches in some areas, according to The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang. Hurricane Lane was tracking 180 miles southwest of Honolulu, churning north at 5 mph.
Storm preparation efforts have been complicated on the island of Maui, where emergency crews have been responding to a brush fire in the Lahaina area. The fire started at about 1 a.m. and spread to hundreds of acres. More than 100 homes have been evacuated. Officials said it’s unclear if the cause of the fire is related to the storm, but the high winds have been stoking it, and the response has been sapping resources that were going toward Hurricane Lane.
“This is one of the worst fires that we’ve ever had,” Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa told a local news station early Friday.
Arakawa said the National Guard has come in to assist and that some people sheltered at a local school were taken to a civic center to make room for those pushed out because of the fires.
More than 1,500 people have been waiting out the hurricane in shelters, with about 1,000 of them in Oahu. Sirens blared throughout Oahu at 4 p.m. Thursday warning residents to take shelter.
“I do expect an increase in population as the storm continues to approach,” said Brad Kieserman, vice president for disaster operations for the American Red Cross, adding that he expected more shelters to open Friday.