Floods Hit Big Island As Other Parts Of Hawaii Brace For Hurricane

Still, the storm posed a considerable weather hazard to large parts of the state, with the island of Hawaii bearing the brunt of torrential downpours from Lane.

Lane is expected to generated 10 to 20 inches in some areas, with even as much as 40 inches possible, especially on the Big Island where more than 30 inches of rain has already fallen, they said. As of Friday afternoon, at least 6,000 residences on Maui had suffered power outages, along with 2,500 on the island of Molokai and 2,500 on Oahu, according to Hawaiian Electric Company and Maui Electric Company.

US Navy ships and submarines based in Hawaii were instructed to leave port, a common practice as a hurricane approaches, to avoid damage.

“You can help us by calling and tell us there is debris”, the mayor said.

At 8 p.m. ET, the storm was located about 275 miles south of Kailua-Kona, or 400 miles SSE of Honolulu.

Lane’s threat came as Maui residents also battled two brush fires, including one that caused evacuations in a resort area.

The centre of the storm was predicted to move close to or over portions of the main islands later on Thursday or on Friday, bringing unsafe surf of 6m and a storm surge of up to 1.2m, forecasters said.

“Some weakening is forecast during the next 48 hours, but Lane is expected to remain a hurricane as it approaches the islands”, the center said.

The outer bands of the Category 3 cyclone pummeled Big Island on Thursday, triggering landslides and causing flooding that forced officials to close some roads.

According to the National Weather Service, the storm has now been downgraded to a Category 4 hurricane and is expected to make contact with the state later today. Many survivors still have mental scars from those terrifying days 26 years ago, and as another major hurricane inches closer, those memories are not going away.

This could lead to life-threatening flash floods and landslides.

The Big Island was hit with more than 50 centimeters (19 inches) of rain in 24 hours, and forecasters warned some areas could see up to 80 centimeters (32 inches) before the storm turns westward over the weekend.

Officials with Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources transferred about 2,000 rare Hawaiian snails from a mountain marsh to offices in Honolulu. Residents are being told to gird themselves for a lengthy storm that could linger well into next week.

The latest predictions showed the eye of the storm twisting west of the Big Island on Friday morning before glancing past Maui and several other islands later in the day on its way to Oahu.

This is especially the case with Hurricane Iniki, a Category 4 hurricane during its September 11, 1992 landfall on the island of Kauai.