Hurricane Lala: Body Of 90-Year-Old Woman Found In Nāʻālehu Field
The body of a Big Island woman who went missing after the storm was discovered Monday, governor says.
Gov. Josh Green said a search crew in Nāʻālehu found the body of a 90-year-old woman in a field Monday afternoon in what is the first fatality attributed to Hurricane Lala.
The woman had been reported missing, according to temporary Hawaiʻi County Fire Chief Daniel Volpe, and search crews had been looking for her. Green said her body was discovered as state and county officials visited the area to inspect the damage the hurricane has done to Kaʻū communities.
“She must have just gotten lost when the rain came through,” Green said, causing flooding to form swollen rivers that roared through the communities of Nāʻālehu, Waiohinu and Pāhala in the southern part of Hawaiʻi island. The woman’s name has not been publicly released pending notification of next of kin.
Police Chief Reed Mahuna said foul play is not suspected. “We don’t believe it is anything other than a result of the disaster at this time, but we will investigate it fully to make sure that that’s the case,” he said.
Volpe said Hawaiʻi County Fire Department crews have been checking homes and reaching out to residents, and apart from the elderly woman who died, “no one that we know has been reported missing, and no calls have come to us as far as persons trapped, persons that can’t get out, persons that are landlocked, persons that are encased by mud.”
Hawaiʻi Adjutant General Stephen Logan said about 240 Hawaiʻi National Guard soldiers and airmen have been activated, including about 60 in Hawaiʻi County. Those troops have also been going door-to-door in Nāʻālehu, he said, to check on families and identify anyone who is missing or unaccounted for.
Hawaiian Electric reported about 39,730 customers on the Big Island were still without power as of 2:30 p.m. Monday, mostly in Puna, North and South Kona, North and South Kohala, Hamakua and South Hilo. The utility said damage assessments are continuing, with helicopters are inspecting six transmission lines across the island.
About 56,800 customers remained without power on Oʻahu, and 7,450 had no electricity on Maui.
The 911 emergency number on the Big Island was also out of commission for much of Monday. An early morning bulletin from the Hawaiʻi County Civil Defense Agency said the storm had affected both radio and telephone communications, but 911 service was restored at about 4 p.m.
Green and Hawaiʻi County Mayor Kimo Alameda said the heavy rains and floodwaters from Hurricane Lala dumped enormous volumes of mud, downed trees and other debris on bridges and roadways, but the structural damage from the flooding does not appear to be as bad as they first feared.
The state, county and private contractors deployed crews Sunday and Monday in the hardest hit areas in a rush to open roads, and “we saw that the structures that we were worried about, like the bridges, may not be as bad off as we thought originally,” Green said.
“There was an incredible amount of debris on top of them in the first 48 hours,” he said. “But the county leadership and the state guys, they were all over it. They’re already removing that debris.”
The bridges will have to undergo testing to ensure they are safe “but we don’t think the community will remain isolated for long,” Green said. “We are going to continue to be all hands on deck there.”
Green said state and county offices and public schools on the Big Island will remain closed Tuesday because thousands of people and facilities are still without power or coping with blocked roads. Those closures only apply to the Big Island, he said, as schools were expected to reopen throughout the rest of the state. The storm damage means “you can also expect that the schools down in Nāʻālehu and Kaʻū are going to be closed for some time,” he said.
He said the trip to survey damage in Kaʻū was emotional because Green was a practicing physician in Kaʻū when he first came to Hawaiʻi.
“I literally saw dozens of my old patients and embraced them years after being their doc,” he said.
Green said Kaʻū residents are “bruised” and need help, and made a public appeal for donations to organizations such as the American Red Cross and Hawaiʻi Community Foundation.
“You know, people are already beginning to recover, but it’s tough,” he said. “They still need water. They still need power, like many people in the state. We also saw people already putting their lives back together.”
People from Hawaiian Ocean View Estates gathered at Ocean View Market on Monday, where Tim Field of Ka‘u Radio had set up a Starlink hotspot and was personally helping every person who stood in line get internet access.
“When there are no communications, people panic,” said Field, who was a volunteer firefighter and EMT for 15 years before he moved to the Big Island and used to run a Community Emergency Response Team. “I wanted people to be able to say firsthand, ‘Yes, I’m okay.’”
Kekahi Young, a kumu hula from a local halau, was organizing a supply drop to Pāhala via helicopter and asking for volunteers.
“It’s a war zone out here. It takes a piece of you,” he said. “Being so embedded into the community and seeing us not have something to move forward to, I was at a loss for words. So I took it upon myself to make a few calls to some other people that I know and friends of friends to try to get ahold of a helicopter, to see if we can get some support in for our people who don’t have access to water or food right now.” Young gathered 700 pounds of food and water and departed from Ocean View’s Kahuku Park at 3 pm.
Parts of Ka‘ū were under a boil water advisory Monday as a precaution.
Laupahoehoe, on the northeast coast of the Big Island, saw the heaviest recorded rainfall at 43.54 inches. The highest winds were atop the towering Mauna Kea volcano, where gusts hit 140 mph. At the lower elevations, residents all across the island chain experienced tropical storm force winds of 30 to 40 mph with gusts up to 60 mph, National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Blood told the Associated Press.
Federal officials have pledged recovery help. U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said Monday he spoke with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about federal support and urged him to approve a forthcoming request for emergency funding to help clear debris and repair damaged roads and highways, AP reported.
Civil Beat reporter Twilight Greenaway contributed to this story.
