With Moke gone without causing much new damage, Big Island returns to recovering from Hurricane Lala

With Tropical Storm Moke headed toward the southern end of the Big Island last week, there was much concern among Hawaiʻi County officials and residents that the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Lala less than a week earlier were about to be hit again.

While the storm was not forecast to become a hurricane or a direct hit to Hawaiʻi Island, heavy rain was predicted, with the National Hurricane Center warning for days of life-threatening flooding from Moke in the same southern areas on Hawai‘i Island that were still wet, saturated and heavily damaged, and where two people were killed in the Kaʻū District due to floodwaters from Lala.

But the heavy rains and more damage from Moke never materialized.

“It appears the storm weakened enough and pulled south enough that we didn’t see any significant impacts,” said Darryl Oliveira, acting administrator of the Hawai‘i County Civil Defense Agency, on Monday morning.

The Big Island wasn’t completely out of the woods until Monday afternoon, when the National Weather Service finally canceled the flood watch when Moke was more than 500 miles west of Hilo and there was no more threat from lingering bands.

Hawai‘i County and Hawaiian Electric crews can now continue to trudge away at restoring access to roads, water and power islandwide without having to deal with a lot of new damage or outages.

Oliveira said they were able to start cutting back on some resources around midnight on Sunday.

Civil Defense received some reports from the field of sporadic downpours, but nothing significant, Oliveira said.

The rainfall produced by Moke over the weekend was low enough that it didn’t contribute to any issues already present in the rural communities, he added.

The only official report of damage from Moke came from the Hawai‘i Police Department, which said a phone line was damaged at their South Kohala police station.

Recovery efforts islandwide are ongoing, with 4,600 Hawaiian Electric customers, including Kaʻū Hospital, still without power more than a week after Lala.

Elena Cabatu, spokesperson for Hilo Benioff Medical Center, said Ka‘ū Hospital continues to operate on a generator, with air conditioning and lights running at a limited rate. Water was restored last week.

Traffic to the emergency room has been light and patient population has fluctuated little from the 17 that was reported immediately after Lala.

The Ka‘ū Clinic, which is next to the hospital, is open and doctors are seeing regular patients. Cabatu said the community is encouraged to come in and manage their health conditions and get prescriptions filled.

The medical center in Hilo is providing fuel for the generators as well as washing linens and clothing for the patients.

The Ka‘ū Hospital Charitable Foundation has been taking donations to support the hospital staff by providing hot meals for their families.

Oliveira said there are priority recovery efforts currently underway. The first is road access and the second is power and water restoration.

Highway 11 on the Pāhala side has opened up to one-lane access below Ka‘ū Hospital. Oliveira said the county also established a bypass detour around the hospital and back to the highway a few days ago, providing two-way traffic in the area.

Work is ongoing to repair the road broken up and damaged by the hurricane.

Highway 11 on the Wai‘ohinu side is a different story.

Oliveira knows there has been some clearing, but because of the unearthed graves washed out at Nā‘ālehu Cemetery above the Punalu‘u Bake Shop, the acting administrator said they have to proceed cautiously.

Highway 11 in front of the bakery now has single-lane traffic flow.

The Wai‘ohinu turn on Highway 11 was completely inundated by a mudslide, forcing Kona-side traffic to detour on South Point Road to get into Nā‘ālehu by Kama‘oa Road.

Since a mudslide occurred right by the Kauaha‘ao Congregational Church, there was concern that the old Hawaiian graveyard on the property was also disturbed. Oliveira said the county is proceeding in the area cautiously.

“Although roadway access is becoming much easier, we’re asking the community, if you don’t need to be out there, don’t, because it interferes with the citizens who are trying to recover,” he said.

Thre also remains a lot of construction and roadway work that needs to be done.

“If we can allow the Highways and Public Works people and our utility companies to work with as little interference as possible, it gets us to recovery much quicker,” Oliveira said.

Hawaiian Electric reported Monday evening about 4,600 customers remain without power. Crews are continuing restoration work in some of the hardest-hit areas after Hurricane Lala, which left homes and businesses destroyed as well as two people dead in Nā‘ālehu.

Customers impacted the most live in the following areas: Kaloko Mauka, Hōlualoa, Mountain View, Glenwood, Āhualoa, Hawaiian Beaches, Paʻauilo Mauka, Kohala Mountain, Fern Forest, Hawaiian Shores, Tangerine Drive, Nānāwale, Nāʻālehu, Punaluʻu, Leilani Estates, Kalapana, Kapoho and Kaʻū.

Three Southern California Edison trucks – two bucket trucks, a company crew truck and a cable reel trailer – were flown into Hilo International Airport on the C-17 Globemaster from California as part of the state’s logistics and relief mission, Operation TREK808.

“The Ka‘ū District is going to be one of the more difficult, if not the most difficult to restore, but they are working to repair and restore as much power island-wide as quickly as they can,” Oliveira said.

The acting administrator said the county has pockets of outages where, in a subdivision, one street has power, and the next one doesn’t.

With main transmission and distribution restored in some areas, Oliveira said there are still challenges in closing all the gaps.

With regard to water, Oliveira said the Department of Water Supply is trying to find workarounds for the loss of the main supply lines from well sites that were washed out. They are looking for solutions that would allow them to re-establish water supply in the Nāʻālehu, South Point, Waiʻohinu and Discovery Harbor areas.

According to a news release from the Department of Water Supply, crews are assessing and repairing the waterline between Haao Springs Tank and South Point Road tank, approximately 17,200 linear feet.

Power was restored to Nāʻālehu well and the Nāʻālehu booster station. The Department of Water Supply reports that they will continue to incrementally expand water service areas to Nāʻālehu, Wai‘ohinu, Discovery Harbor, Mark Twain Subdivision, Green Sands Subdivision and South Point Road areas.

Potable water tankers are located across from Nāʻālehu Ace Hardware and at the Discovery Harbor Clubhouse for public use.

The county department is hauling water to tanks within the system to assist and facilitate water restoration efforts.