Tropical Storm Lala leaves one dead and widespread outages in Hawaii

Lala weakened to a tropical storm on Sunday, August 16, after passing south of Hawaii’s Big Island without making landfall, but authorities warned that heavy rain, flash flooding and damaging winds remained dangerous across the island chain.

Hawaii Governor Josh Green said at least one person died in a vehicle crash in the South Point area. More than 130,000 households across Hawaii’s three largest islands were without electricity on Sunday morning, according to the outage tracker PowerOutage.us. Green said three hospitals were operating on generators and 19 roofs had been lost.

Officials launched a search-and-rescue operation after floodwaters reportedly swept several occupied homes from their foundations near Na’alehu and Wai’ohinu. Tropical storm warnings remained in effect for Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Oahu, Kauai and Niihau as Lala moved west.

Forecasters said higher windward slopes could receive close to one metre of rain, raising the threat of life-threatening floods and landslides. Although the storm’s centre avoided a direct strike on the Big Island, hurricane-force gusts were still possible over higher terrain.

Lala had strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane early Saturday before weakening. Hawaii’s last hurricane landfall was Hurricane Iniki on Kauai in 1992.