HONOLULU– Several people on the Hawaiian island of Kauai had to be rescued from floodwaters during heavy rains, authorities said Friday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
Heavy rain beginning Thursday afternoon caused public schools to close Friday on Kauai and shelters to open. Crews worked Friday to reopen various roads closed by landslides, leaning utility poles and overflowing creek waters.
Firefighters were busy Thursday evening rescuing people, primarily in the communities of Koloa and Wailua, said Elton Ushio, Kauai emergency management administrator. He did not yet have an estimate of how many people would need to be rescued or evacuated. But he noted there was 4 feet (1.22 meters) of water in at least one house.
“And these are residential areas where at first the water started to rise, and then it started to get closer, you know, to the lower level of the houses in several cases, to rise and enter the houses they “Themselves, where people needed to be, you know, evicted from these homes,” he said.
Kauai residents are used to rain, and this event was not as severe as the 2018 rainstorms that generated a national record for 24-hour precipitation, Ushio said.
Kauai is “one of the wettest places on Earth, in terms of annual precipitation,” he said. “All our lush valleys, our deep canyons… it’s because of the precipitation we get.”
The intensity of the rain was from 6 p.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday, with several places having more than 10 inches (25.4 centimeters), according to the National Weather Service.
Rainfall at Lihue Airport – the island’s only official record-keeping station – broke a 1996 record with 3.65 inches (9.27 centimeters) for Thursday, said Derek Wroe, a meteorologist at the bureau from the Honolulu Weather Service.
That record will likely be broken again Friday, based on the more than 11 inches (27.94 centimeters) recorded during the 12-hour period between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. at Lihue Airport, Wroe said .
The rain eased after sunrise Friday, but heavy downpours were expected Saturday night into Sunday morning, increasing the risk of flooding, it said.
ABC News
