A hurricane warning is in effect for Hawaii's Big Island as Tropical Storm Lala moves toward the islands, with the National Hurricane Center warning that hurricane conditions were expected to arrive by Saturday local time. The storm is forecast to bring extremely heavy rain, flooding, life-threatening surf and rip currents.
According to CBS News, the core of Lala will pass the Big Island on Saturday before reaching south of the smaller islands on Sunday. The storm is expected to weaken as it interacts with the Big Island's terrain, but damaging hurricane-force winds are still forecast, especially across higher elevations. Tropical-storm-force winds are expected across portions of the smaller Hawaiian islands.
Flooding and mudslides are a major concern. In a worst-case scenario, Lala could dump 25 inches of rain onto the Big Island, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said. The storm could also produce a storm surge as high as 3 feet along the coast, along with large waves and life-threatening rip currents.
Gov. Josh Green addressed the threat in a news briefing Friday night. "This is a very serious storm," he said. "We have not had a hurricane make landfall in quite some time. So none of us really have experienced this really in, you know, the last couple of decades." Green warned that Hawaii will see "an incredible amount of water" and cautioned about the possibility of major power outages. "We're hoping that it's going to be sufficiently far south that we just get the periphery of the storm, but, no promises, we've seen storms turn," he said.
The last hurricane to make landfall in Hawaii was Hurricane Iniki in 1992, a Category 4 storm that caused six deaths and $3 billion in damage, according to Green. Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda told CBS News on Friday morning that the islands are not immune. "We're not exempt from these extreme weather conditions. So we've been here before, and messages have already gone out. But this could look like a big one," he said.
In addition to the hurricane warning for the Big Island, a tropical storm warning is in place for Maui County, including the islands of Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kahoolawe, as well as Oahu and Kauai County, which includes Kauai and Niihau. Tropical storm conditions are possible in Oahu and Kauai County by Sunday morning.
