Heavy rains on Kauai prompt flood rescues

HONOLULU– Several people on the Hawaiian island of Kauai needed to be rescued from floodwaters during heavy rains, authorities said Friday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.

Heavy rains that began Thursday afternoon led to the closure of public schools Friday on Kauai and the opening of shelters. Crews worked Friday to reopen several roads closed due to mudslides, toppled utility poles and overflowing creeks.

Firefighters were busy Thursday night rescuing people, mainly in the communities of Koloa and Wailua, said Kauai Emergency Management Administrator Elton Ushio. He did not yet have an estimate of how many people needed to be rescued or evacuated. But he noted there was a report of 4 feet of water in at least one home.

“And these are residential areas where at first the water started to rise, and then it got closer, you know, rising to the lowest level of the houses in several cases, rising and entering the houses themselves, where people needed to be, you know, removed from those houses,” he said.

Kauai residents are used to rain, and this event was not as bad as the 2018 storms, which generated a national record for rainfall in 24 hours, Ushio said.

Kauai is “one of the wettest places on Earth, in terms of annual precipitation,” he said. “All of our lush valleys, deep canyons…it’s because of the rain we get.”

The peak intensity of the rain was from 6 pm on Thursday to 6 am on Friday, with several locations recording more than 25.4 centimeters, according to the National Weather Service.

Rainfall at Lihue Airport – the island’s only official record-keeping station – broke the 1996 record with 3.65 inches (9.27 centimeters) on Thursday, said Derek Wroe, a meteorologist with the weather service’s office. in Honolulu.

That record would likely be broken again on Friday, based on the more than 11 inches (27.94 centimeters) recorded during the 12-hour period from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. at Lihue Airport, Wroe said.

The rain eased after sunrise Friday, but heavy downpours were expected Saturday night into Sunday morning, bringing more threats of flooding, he said.