Lala Hurricane victims 93-year-old May Doi and retired physicist John Hylas found by neighbors in pastures

May Doi lived on Maia Street, walking distance to Nāʻālehu Elementary School where she taught young kids for years.

On Saturday night, when Hurricane Lala struck, the 93-year-old was home alone as the winds howled and raging floodwaters rushed through the small, rural town of about 820 people.

Nobody knows exactly what happened before she was found deceased on Monday morning about a mile south from her house. On Wednesday, two vehicles were seen under her carport and a couch was in her yard, surrounded by mud.

Nobody also knows what happened to the Big Island’s second known victim of Lala: a man in his 60s identified by community members on social media and in Doi’s neighborhood as John Hylas, a retired physicist from Cornell University and a regular at Honua Coffee Shop.

Doi was not found by the police, as Hawaiʻi Gov. Josh Green said Monday afternoon, or by the National Guard’s “specialized rescue” teams or by local fire department search crews. Her body was discovered Monday morning by her neighbors and by former students who did not give up looking for their beloved teacher, Mrs. Doi.

Hylas also was found by residents, on Tuesday, in a pasture off Highway 11 near the 63-mile marker in Ka‘ū, the Hawaiʻi Island police said in a news release.

In both cases, official searches for them by first responders had turned up empty.

While their final hours will remain a mystery, several residents in the area on Wednesday all agreed the losses of Doi and Hylas are a community tragedy.

“We all knew her. We all loved her,” 24-year-old Teani Grace-Keanu said of Doi, whose grandma was a good friend.

Grace-Keanu said everybody in Nā‘ālehu knew him, too.

“We always see him running with his backpack full of rocks,” she said with a smile. “He was a really nice guy.”

A Facebook post by Honua Coffee Shop said: “John became so much more than a customer to us. He was our weather guy, our volcano expert, and one of those people who became part of the heart of our little coffee shop.”

Hylas loved rain and he “somehow always knew when a storm was coming and when we were finally going to get some rain,” the post said.

The immediate couple days following the Category 1 storm were chaotic in the hard hit Kaʻū District, where Doi and Hylas lived. Roads and bridges were full of mud, fallen trees, downed power lines and other debris, or washed away — making access to Nāʻālehu challenging.

At first, many of Doi’s neighbors — who all knew her well — were not sure if a brother had come to get her or if she had evacuated to a shelter prior to the storm.

Fern Albrechtson’s 88-year-old father, who lives across the street from Doi on Maia Street, was home with her brother on Saturday night. Albrechtson said she called the Hawai‘i Fire Department’s rescue team to have them both evacuated because her father’s wheelchair washed away in the storm waters.

Albrechtson said she also asked the National Guard to check on Doi. Her father and Doi were the “two old-timers” of the neighborhood on Maia Street.

“My uncle and my brother were knocking at her door, but I think she was already gone because nobody came,” she said.

Kamakani Dancil, a 51-year-old who lives a “few doors up” from Doi, said he woke up Sunday relieved to have survived the storm “until we checked on Aunty May and then couldn’t find her.”

He also said there was mixed messaging about whether Doi had gone to a shelter.

“We thought the brother came down and got her the night before,” Dancil said. “But nope, because they came down the next day and she wasn’t there.”

Neighbors confirmed with the shelter that Doi never checked in. Their fears heightened after Dancil and a friend checked her house and could see where the water entered. 

On Sunday, the day after the hurricane struck, Doi’s son from O’ahu called neighbor Jadelyn Kekoa-Jara asking for help to search for his mother whom he could not reach, said Kekoa-Jara’s cousin Taylor Kekoa in a text.

“Locals of Ka’ū searched for her but no luck,” Kekoa said.

On Monday, Burt Burgos, a former student of Doi, asked if she had been found. When she hadn’t, he asked where had already been searched.

“There were rumors about Mrs. Doi being found or being with family. None of that was true,” Kekoa said.

Burgos insisted another search be conducted for the nonagenarian. They got permission from the Souza ‘ohana to search the pasture of their ranch that is near Doi’s house. Eight people, including a 14-year-old, took part.

Burgos and Randy Oleyte first ran into a pile that “smelled like deathly.” They dug with their hands but found nothing so they reached a part in the search where they decided to split up, Kekoa said.

Burgos headed mauka and Oleyte headed makai. Kekoa-Jara walked the middle path “just in case,” Kekoa said.

“It wasn’t even 10 minutes till Burt yelled for Jadelyn to call everyone back because he found her,” Kekoa said. “He told Jadelyn to stay put knowing the scene might be too heartbreaking for her.”

The two men stared at Doi’s bruised lifeless body and broke down in tears.

“They found her in an open field that police claimed was too ‘rough’ for them to drive through,” Kekoa said. “She wasn’t covered in mud nor was she hidden in the bushes. She was there in the middle of the field, where National Guard flew over multiple times.”

Toby Kekoa Burgos, 21, of Discovery Harbor, also took part in the search for Doi.

“It was sad, but then it was kind of a relief to find her,” the younger Burgos said.

While they were still at the ranch, Burgos said the National Guard helicopters flew over them and started to circle. One of the helicopters had officials aboard, including Green, Major General Stephen F. Logan, the adjutant general of the Hawaiʻi National Guard, and Hawaʻi County Mayor Kimo Alameda.

“They stopped and hovered over them, looked out at them and didn’t even check on them,” Kekoa said she was told by her father and Kekoa-Jara, who both could not be reached for direct comment. “They actually continued to go and have lunch at Nāʻālehu Elementary School.”

When the helicopters landed, the younger Burgos said his two cousins ran to the road to go find someone to help when they stopped the National Guard who were driving up Highway 11.

Kekoa said her cousin was told by the National Guard: “Oh, you guys found her? … Okay, we’ll let the cops know.”

In a Hawaiʻi County press conference on Monday afternoon, Green said: “While we were there, the police did discover the lost soul, the 90-year-old woman that perished in the flood.”

Hawaiʻi County temporary fire chief Daniel Volpe said during the same press conference that his department was informed about this woman as a “possible missing person.”

He said fire crews began a search, but the access was difficult. The fire crews that were staged in the Waiʻōhinu region that is next to Nāʻālehu and other crews were able to make their way to assist police working around that area.

“No luck,” Volpe said.

Volpe said the crews also were not sure if she was missing, or if “she was accounted for with friends, with neighbors, or whether she was somewhere else.”

Hawaiʻi County Police Chief Reed Mahuna said his department activated a missing person investigation for Doi. But it also “wasn’t clear to us whether she may have been picked up or if she was, in fact, still in the area. But crews were in the area.”

At one point, Volpe said, “We did pull back. We did allow this afternoon, National Guard … some specialized rescue people were able to come in. She was located while we were there.”

Police and an ambulance responded, Volpe said.

“Unfortunately, by the time she was located, she was found deceased,” Volpe said. “So our sympathy and our compassion goes out to the families.”

Logan, with the National Guard, said during the Monday press conference that 60 personnel were activated to work on Hawaiʻi County. He added 15 more were enroute.

“This team that we brought in is highly specialized,” he said. “It’s really designed for a chemical, biological, radiological attack. But they have specific, exquisite skills in search and extraction, and also fatality search and recovery, should that become necessary. So we’re augmenting what the county is already doing. We’re going to be here until it’s over.”

In a news release, it said police were contacted shortly after 3:30 p.m. on Monday and asked to conduct a welfare check on an individual, which the community identified as Hylas. “Police immediately initiated search efforts; however, authorities were unable to locate him,” the release said.

Hylas’ remains were discovered by area residents just before 3 p.m. Aug. 18 in a pasture, police reported.

The Honua Coffee shop Facebook post said: “(Hylas) supported us every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, from the very first day we opened our doors. We got so used to seeing him walk in, hearing his stories, and feeling his positive energy that it’s hard to imagine our days without him.”

Brenda Trowbridge was neighbors with Hylas for six years. She described the retired man as exuberant.

“He was so full of energy. Boundless energy and knowledge, which he loved to share,” Trowbridge told Big Island Now.

Trowbridge described Hylas as a fixture in the community.

“With his tennis shoes, running shorts and backpack that he speed-walked everywhere with, he will be dearly missed,” she said.

Grace-Keanu recalled when she was young she would go with her grandmother to check on Doi.

“She was a very old, very nice lady,” she said. “She was always happy to see everybody, especially the kids.”

As Grace-Keanu got older, she continued those visits to Doi. She said the whole subdivision took care of the 93-year-old. One neighbor would take her trash out. She would check her mail, and there was always someone checking on her, “because she was really old.”

Grace-Keanu also remembered Doi giving her money to go to the store to grab snacks: “She had a good, loving soul.”

Editor Cammy Clark contributed to this report.