So after a week on Kaua'i, we headed off for the big island (Hawai'i). We arrived on 01-Nov-00 just as it was starting to rain ( the tarmac at the airport was just starting to get wet ). After spending a rain free week on Kaua'i, we hoped our luck would hold. It didn't. The rain and the wind kept increasing in intensity throught the night.
By 2:00AM, the lights which had been flickering all evening finally went out for good. The came back on about an hour later, but were intermittent until morning. We woke up to palm trees blowing sideways and rain coming down by the buckets. We decided it might be a good day to stay in the room and order room service. At 4:00 in the afternoon, the clouds finally broke and the sun came out.
That evening on the news we saw the destruction in Hilo. Roads were washed out, houses destroyed, and cars were up to their hoods in flood water. The next morning the papers reported it was the record rainfall of all time on the big island, with 28" of rain falling on Hilo in 24 hours. Fortunately, we were on the dry side of the island, so we didn't get the quantity of rain that they got on the Hilo side.
For the rest of the trip, every half hour on the radio stations, they would have the civil defense authorities announcing what roads were closed, what bridges were out, where to get disaster relief, et-cetera. Quite a start to our week on the big island.
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Copyright © 2000 by Bennet Blake
Last fiddeled with 17-Nov-00