Hawaii\u2019s Big Island was threatened Saturday with its first possible direct hit from a hurricane in 155 years as Hurricane Lala roared in the Pacific Ocean and gusty wind, waves and rain pounded the region.<\/p>\n
The National Hurricane Center said Lala\u2019s maximum sustained winds increased to 75 mph (120 kph), making it a Category 1 hurricane. The storm’s center was forecast to move over or near the island\u2019s southern end by the evening, lashing its worst winds at volcanic slopes thousands of feet above sea level. <\/p>\n
Gov. Josh Green, noting rainfall of 2 inches (5 centimeters) an hour, said \u201cpeople should be sheltering in place now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forecasters said higher elevations on the island, dominated by the towering Mauna Kea volcano, could get as much as 25 inches (63.5 centimeters) of rain. That could cause life-threatening mudslides in a mountainous area where people live off the grid in improvised housing.<\/p>\n
Earlier the governor called it an \u201cenormous storm,\u201d capable of destructive flooding and even the possibility of wildfires kicked up by strong winds across the island chain. Electricity was knocked out for nearly 20% of customers on the Big Island, according to poweroutage.us.<\/p>\n
The island, population 210,000, is Hawaii’s largest. <\/p>\n
Residents prepare for the worst <\/p>\n
Bobby Camara, a 75-year-old lifelong resident, said he planned to \u201chunker down, cross my fingers, hope the lights don\u2019t go out\u201d at a care home just outside Hilo. He said gas stations were busy as people sought fuel for chain saws and vehicles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think stocking up is part of life over here. … You learn to be self-reliant,\u201d Camara said.<\/p>\n
Mike Caputo, who lives in Keaau, near the Big Island’s east coast, said his power generator was ready and a 10,000-gallon (37.8 kiloliter) home water tank was full. He said the main concern was flash flooding and fallen trees, especially albizia, a common tree. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not very sturdy, but they grow extremely large,\u201d said Caputo, 50, a local fire captain. \u201cThey can make roads impassable.”<\/p>\n
Warnings posted everywhere <\/p>\n
The Big Island was under a hurricane warning, and tropical storm warnings were issued for the islands of Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Oahu, Kauai and Niihau. <\/p>\n
A Category 3 hurricane hit the northeast corner of the Big Island in 1871, according to research by a University of Hawaii atmospheric scientist. The latest forecast has Lala striking \u201cvery close to the southern tip of the Big Island,\u201d said Vanessa Almanza, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Honolulu.<\/p>\n
Shelters were opened, events were canceled and ranchers were urged to leave their cattle in pastures, rather than structures that might collapse. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t take landfall to create destruction,\u201d Almanza said. <\/p>\n
Indeed, Christine Matsuda, who lives in Waimea, on the northern side of the island, said \u201cbig gusts every few minutes rattle the whole house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re finding unexpected leaks in places that don’t see water under normal conditions,\u201d Matsuda said.<\/p>\n
The hurricane center predicted 8 to 12 inches (20.3 to 30.5 centimeters) of total rainfall across Maui and the lower elevations of the Big Island, and 4 to 6 inches (10.2 to 15.2 centimeters) across the island chain. Many Hawaii residents are still dealing with the aftermath of devastating floods in March. <\/p>\n
Wildfire risks increase during windy weather <\/p>\n
As winds ramped up across the islands, Almanza said dry and breezy conditions outside the storm would elevate fire concerns. <\/p>\n
In 2023 the Maui town of Lahaina burned during extreme winds as a hurricane passed far to the south.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the fire, everybody is way more aware of weather in general and our environment and things that are happening,\u201d said Archie Kalepa of Lahaina, who is known in the area for his surfing, paddling and other ocean skills.<\/p>\n
Kauai, which is several islands northwest up the archipelago from the Big Island, is where Hurricane Iniki made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in 1992 \u2014 an El Nino year like this one, when a warming of the Pacific near the equator increases Pacific hurricane activity and affects weather patterns across the globe. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt did $3 billion worth of damage. It destroyed thousands of homes, and it did kill six people,\u201d said Steven Businger, a University of Hawaii scientist. \u201cWe just can never know if a storm is going to turn.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press writer Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawaii\u2019s Big Island was threatened Saturday with its first possible direct hit from a hurricane in 155 years…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1003092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,8071,26621,2692,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-1003313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-extreme-weather","tag-hawaii","tag-hurricanes","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117102108125700910","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1003092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}