Lala weakens to tropical storm after battering Hawaii; 1 dead, 183,000 without power

Hurricane Lala slipped past Hawaii's Big Island on Sunday without making landfall, but the storm had no intention of leaving quietly. As it weakened into a tropical storm, the island was still being hammered by hurricane-force winds and drenched by rainfall that would eventually reach nearly three feet on the higher windward slopes. The damage was already mounting: one person dead in a car accident near South Point, more than 100 homes destroyed, and 183,000 utility customers sitting in darkness across the islands by mid-afternoon.

Governor Josh Green surveyed the wreckage and counted the losses methodically. Three hospitals were running on generator power. Nineteen roofs had been torn away. But the numbers only told part of the story. In the coastal communities of Na'alehu and Wai'ohinu, near the island's southern tip, flash floods had apparently lifted occupied homes right off their foundations, prompting an urgent search-and-rescue operation involving civil defense, the National Guard, and the Coast Guard. County Mayor Kimo Alameda described the scene early Sunday morning as residents were still being accounted for.

The rainfall itself posed a threat as severe as the wind. Meteorologists warned that higher elevations on the Big Island, dominated by the towering Mauna Kea volcano, could receive as much as 35 inches of rain. Rivers were turning into raging torrents. Mudslides were becoming a real possibility in areas where some of the island's 210,000 residents live off the grid in improvised housing. The National Hurricane Center cautioned that wind speeds atop mountains and on windward and leeward slopes often run 30 percent stronger than the near-surface winds used to officially categorize storms, meaning the actual conditions on the ground were worse than the official designation suggested.

The Punalu'u Bake Shop in Naalehu, a beloved tourist destination and significant local employer, took a direct hit. Water rushed through the factories and retail store, leaving behind about three feet of mud. Zachary Kennedy, the manager of the Hawaiian sweet bread bakery, stood in the wreckage and tried to find words adequate to the moment. "This is a different level of damage," he said. "It's literally catastrophic." The shop had been a fixture in the community, and its destruction felt like more than just property loss.

The Big Island had narrowly escaped something it hadn't experienced in 155 years. As the eye of the storm passed the island's southern tip, the possibility of a direct hurricane hit faded. National Weather Service meteorologist Joseph Clark confirmed that landfall was no longer expected. Yet the reprieve was incomplete. Hurricane-force winds were forecast to continue into the overnight hours, with the strongest gusts likely in areas of higher terrain. Tropical storm warnings remained in effect for Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Kauai, and Niihau as the system moved westward, raising the possibility of destructive flooding and wind-driven wildfires across the island chain.

Many residents were drawing on hard-won experience. Bobby Camara, a 75-year-old lifelong resident staying at a care home just outside Hilo, had decided to "hunker down, cross my fingers, and hope the lights don't go out." He watched as gas stations filled with people seeking fuel for chain saws and vehicles. "I think stocking up is part of life over here," Camara reflected. "You learn to be self-reliant." Mike Caputo, a 50-year-old fire captain living in Keaau on the Big Island's east coast, had his power generator ready and his 10,000-gallon home water tank full. His main concern was flash flooding and fallen trees, particularly the albizia trees that grow extremely large but lack structural integrity. "They can make roads impassable," he said.

Lala had intensified rapidly, jumping from a tropical storm into a hurricane early Saturday as its maximum sustained winds climbed to 75 miles per hour, earning it a Category 1 designation. The last hurricane to make landfall on the islands came in 1992, when Hurricane Iniki, a Category 4 storm, struck Kauai. The Big Island itself hadn't been hit directly since 1871, when a Category 3 hurricane struck the northeast corner. The storm that was bearing down on Sunday represented a rare threat to a population that had grown accustomed to near-misses. As the night wore on, the question was no longer whether the Big Island would be spared, but how much damage the storm would inflict before it finally moved on.