Hurricane Lala battered Hawaii’s Big Island early Sunday, unleashing torrential rain, dangerous flash flooding and damaging winds after strengthening into a Category 1 storm.
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency for parts of the Big Island late Saturday, warning of life-threatening conditions in communities including Naalehu, Pahala and Hawaiian Ocean View.
Rain was falling at an extraordinary rate of 3 to 5 inches per hour in some areas, prompting officials to describe the flooding as a “particularly dangerous situation” and urge residents in affected communities to move to higher ground.
Local law enforcement reported that two homes were swept away by intense flooding in the Naalehu area.
Over the past 36 hours, rainfall totals have exceeded one to two feet across much of the windward side of the Big Island, while some isolated monitoring stations recorded as much as 35 inches.
The storm also caused widespread power outages. As of 5 a.m. ET Sunday, more than 126,000 customers across Hawaii were without electricity, with the majority of outages reported in Hawaii County, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.
At that time, the National Hurricane Center said Lala was about 65 miles west of Kailua-Kona and approximately 130 miles south-southeast of Honolulu.
The hurricane was moving northwest at about 15 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.
Hurricane warnings remained in effect for the Big Island as authorities warned residents to prepare for continued flooding, strong winds and potentially dangerous conditions as Lala moves through the region.
