Hawaii braces for hurricane Douglas as Texas reels from dance of Hanna

HONOLULU — Hawaii geared up on Saturday to face a hurricane that threatened to pummel the islands with dangerous surf, strong winds and flash floods even as residents grappled with escalating numbers of coronavirus cases.

Powerful storms are familiar to many in Hawaii who have spent the past several summers preparing for tropical cyclones. But the pandemic adds a twist.

Luke Meyers, administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, urged people get ready by learning about the hazards where they live.

“We know that things are going to get wet, things are going to blow and things are going to slide,” Meyers said.

The U.S. National Weather Service on Saturday issued a hurricane warning for the island of Oahu, where the state’s largest city, Honolulu, is located. The Big Island and Maui remained in a hurricane watch.

Maximum sustained winds had decreased and were about 150 kilometres an hour, making it a Category 1 hurricane by midday Saturday.

“Douglas is continuing a gradual, slow, weakening trend, which in itself is good news, but the bad news is that this hurricane is going to come very close to the islands even as it’s weakening,” said Robert Ballard, the science and operations officer at the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. “And we do expect significant impacts as it makes its point of closest approach or possible landfall as it comes through.”

Hawaii Gov. David Ige said officials anticipate rain, wind and storm surge on east-facing shores.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Hanna roared ashore onto the Texas Gulf Coast on Saturday, bringing winds that lashed the shoreline with rain and storm surge, and even threatening to bring tornadoes.

The first hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season made landfall twice as a Category 1 storm on Saturday afternoon within the span of little over an hour, with maximum sustained winds of 145 km/h.

Chris Birchfield, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville, said residents needed to remain alert. The storm’s real threat remained heavy rainfall, he said.

“We’re not even close to over at this point. We’re still expecting catastrophic flooding,” Birchfield said. Forecasters said Hanna could bring 15 to 30 centimetres) of rain through tonight — with isolated totals of 46 centimetres — in addition to coastal swells.