The Big Island of Hawaii was not hit by Hurricane Lala. In a technical sense. It passed so close to South Point, the southernmost tip of the United States, that its eyewall touched the edge of the island, something that hadn’t happened since 1871. Conversations, weather briefings, and social media posts from storm chasers who drove Highway 11 thru the nite frequently bring up that figure. It’s the type of historical footnote that could seem abstract in other situations. It doesn’t feel abstract at all after this weekend.
Extremes are already prevalent on the Big Island. It features snow-capped peaks, black sand beaches, active volcanoes, and rainforests that are submerged for months at a time. Locals usually realize that you have to make accommodations for the island, not the other way around. However, what Lala dropped on the island in about a day was something else, even by those standards. It rained more than three feet in some places. Not during the season. in a single storm. Normally home to Rainbow Falls, a popular tourist destination, the Wailuku River transformed into a roaring wall of brown water that bore no resemblance to the waterfall depicted in the brochures.
Numerous bridges along Highway 11, which runs along the western and southern coast of the island, were washed out. There is no detour on that road. It’s the road for neighborhoods like Ocean View and Pahala. People are cut off when it goes in a way that is difficult to describe unless you have driven that distance and realized how few options there are. Although the damage was substantial enough that complete restoration would not occur overnight, the crews were out quickly.
Over a hundred homes were destroyed, according to Governor Josh Green. He claimed that before the storm completely passed, 28 inches of rain had fallen in some places and that wind gusts had reached 70 miles per hour. Although earlier estimates had placed the number closer to 20,000 because conditions were still developing, over 44,000 customers lost power at the peak. The extent of what he was describing—washed-out infrastructure, lost homes, and ongoing search and rescue operations—made it obvious that this wasn’t standard storm management, even tho Green’s declaration of a state of emergency isn’t unusual in circumstances like this.
The Big Island in particular is noteworthy because, geologically speaking, it is the youngest landmass in the Hawaiian chain and is still being sculpted by southern lava flows. In regions like Puna and Ka’u, the topography is rough, uneven, and in some places hardly developed. The island is particularly vulnerable when water falls so quickly because of its geography, which also makes it a beautiful place to visit. On young, steep slopes, flash floods don’t require much of an invitation.
According to officials, a car accident that might have been caused by a storm claimed one life. When you consider the uncertainty involved and the implication that the investigation is still ongoing, that is the kind of language that carries a lot of weight. Although Governor Green was cautious to state that no deaths were directly linked to the storm, the overall situation was dire enough to warrant discussion of the specifics.
It’s still too early to predict the specifics of the recovery. The Big Island has recovered from difficult events in the past, such as the eruptions of Kilauea that engulfed entire neighborhoods in 1992 and Iniki. This person exhibits resilience without making a big show of it. It manifests itself in the workers clearing debris at two in the morning and in the neighbors checking on one another before assessing their own damage. Even as the scope of what Lala left behind becomes more apparent by the hour, it’s difficult not to feel some admiration for this as it develops from the outside.
