Tropical Storm Lane damage assessment under way
HONOLULU — +DZDLL RI¿cials on Monday continued assessing damage from Tropical Storm Lane, which ranked as the No. 3 rainmaker from a tropical cyclone in the United States since 1950.
It's still too early to quantify the extent of the damage, but LW UXQV WKH JDPXW IURP ÀRRGHG homes to washed-out roads, said Kelly Wooten, spokeswoman for the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency.
"We don't really have any numbers or statistics back yet," she said. Assessment teams began surveying the damage Sunday.
The storm caused damage, mostly on the Big Island, where rivers raged near Hilo and nearly 40 people had to be rescued from homes.
There were no deaths from the storm, which had the potential to cause much more destruction.
Some 200 people have called to report some kind of damage, mostly on the east side of the Big Island, said county Managing Director Wil Okabe.
"What we're concerned about is the mold — when it goes into the drywall, the rug, stuff like that," Okabe said.
The storm named Lane was barreling toward the Hawaiian Islands as a powerful Category 5 hurricane in the middle of the week. But then it slowed down, moving as slow as 2 mph at times.
While it slowed, the storm's outer bands hovered over the east side of the Big Island, allowing Lane to drop 51.53 inches of rain, the National Weather Service said Monday.
On Sunday, state Sen. Kai .DKHOH VXUYH\HG ÀRRG GDPDJH at Waiakea Elementary School in Hilo on the Big island. Six classrooms for preschool, special education and kinderJDUWHQ VWXGHQWV ÀRRGHG DQG the smell of mildew was settling in, he said.
, WKLQN LW V UHÀHFWLYH RI ZKDW you see all over east Hawaii," he said. "Four feet of water in three days overwhelmed even the best infrastructure and the best storm drains and plans."
As the island continued to clean up from the storm, some people were feeling like it could have been worse if Lane remained a hurricane and unleashed destructive winds.
Catarine Zaragoza-Dodge, owner of The Locavore Store in Hilo, was feeling grateful her shop fared better than others. 7KH VWRUH JRW VRPH ÀRRGLQJ Thursday night and they were able to mop up waterproof YLQ\O ÀRRUV RQ )ULGD\ LQ RUGHU to re-open by Saturday.
Parts of Hawaii are still seeing the effects of Lane, said National Weather Service Meteorologist Vannesa Almanza.