Hurricane Lane lashes Hawaii’s Big Island with 12in of rain

Hurricane Lane on its way to Hawaii.

Brad Kieserman of the Red Cross said there were 16 emergency shelters open and 283 people across the island already in them.

Authorities also warned that the shelters are not created to withstand winds greater than about 40mph and that for most people they should be a “last resort”.

The state closed all government offices on Maui and the Big Island starting Wednesday. Kauai and Niihau are under a hurricane watch, meaning hurricane conditions are possible and that winds of at least 39 miles per hour are anticipated in the comings days, reports CNN.

“Hurricanes are inherently unpredictable, so a movement in either direction could affect the force of the winds”, said Richard Rapoza, spokesman for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

“Trying to figure which comes first, the fire or the rain”, said Azam, who’s from Oakland, California, and is staying at a hotel.

Officials are working on shelter logistics for Hawaii’s sizeable homeless population.

As many dealt with flooding and even brush fires, swimmers and surfers ignored warnings from authorities and plunged into powerful waves at Oahu’s famed Waikiki Beach, which was closed.

Apart from fossil fuels, Hawaii is just one of seven US states to draw power from geothermal resources.

Fort said that moving the fleet would allow the ships “enough time to transit safely out of the path of the storm”.

The slow movement of the storm could mean that heavy rain and other effects are prolonged for Hawaii, officials said.

FLORIDO: Goldstein says in addition to the winds, the storm could dump up to 30 inches of rain on some parts of the state.

Hurricane Lane has taken a turn toward Hawaii but is weakening as it approaches the islands.

The National Weather Service in Honolulu said: “The center of Lane will track dangerously close to the islands Thursday through Saturday”.

The winds are up to 230kms/h per hour near the storm’s centre.

Lane may weaken even further – to Category 3 – by Thursday afternoon and even fall to a Category 2 by Friday with winds up to 110 miles per hour and its center west of Hawaii Island and south of Honolulu.

Nestled in the Central Pacific Ocean, Hawaii rarely gets hit by hurricanes.

Earlier it was reported that the speed of hurricane lane reaches 250 km/h, gusts of wind can be stronger.

The service says the hurricane is still forecast to be a risky hurricane as it gets closer to the islands.

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 20ft and a storm surge of up to 4ft, forecasters said.

Preliminary figures from the weather service show that Lane dropped the fourth-highest amount of rain for a hurricane to hit the United States since 1950.

It is expected to bring “life threatening conditions” across the state through to Saturday, with heavy flooding rains, damaging winds, storm surge and risky surf.

On Tuesday night, the National Weather Service announced Hurricane Lane had become a Category 5 hurricane.

An alert notice sent to all mobile phones in the Honolulu area on Wednesday afternoon to warn of Hurricane Lane’s arrival.

Weather authorities said Hurricane Lane had weakened slightly to a Category 4 storm but was still packing maximum sustained winds of 215 kilometres per hour, threatening torrential rain, high winds and unsafe surf.