Two visitors to Kaua’i were extra happy to ring in the new year last night. Twenty-four hours earlier, they were sitting in a guest house in Haena when strong wind blew a towering tree on top of it. The Norfolk
Two visitors to Kaua’i were extra happy to ring in the new year last night.
Twenty-four hours earlier, they were sitting in a guest house in Haena when strong wind blew a towering tree on top of it.
The Norfolk pine, an estimated 150 feet tall before its descent, split the one-story house and knocked a beam on top of a man from California. But except for scratches on his back and a bump on his head, he and a woman from France who was sharing the house with him walked away unhurt.
“They’re lucky they weren’t killed,” said Toni Martin, who owns the guest house and lives nearby off Kuhio Highway.
The tree and others like it withstood the ferocious Hurricane Iniki in 1992 and other powerful winds, but the strong gusts at 4 p.m. Sunday were apparently too much for it, Martin said.
The guest house is “toast,” she said. It and the tree will be removed.
Martin said her guests, whose names weren’t given, intended to attend a New Year’s Eve party as planned and will stay at an unoccupied friend’s house the rest of their visit.
High winds were expected to subside today, giving way to light winds this morning and afternoon ocean breezes, said Tim Craig, a National Weather Service forecaster in Honolulu.
But the Ha’ena and Hanalei county beaches were expected to remain closed today because of high surf.
Kaua’i County Fire Department officials said conditions were expected to remain “very, very dangerous,” though forecasters said Kaua’i surf would be smaller today than yesterday.
Yesterday, waves at Ha’ena had faces of 25 to 30 feet, and a high-surf warning was issued. Today, waves were expected to be around 15 feet on north and northwest-facing shores, in the high-surf-advisory range, said Craig.
The weather forecast for today is for mostly sunny skies, high temperatures near 80 degrees, and light wind from the northwest, he said.
Based on jetstream current and projected patterns, the island will see many days of high-surf conditions early in the new year, according to the Fire Department.
Staff writer Paul C. Curtis and editor Pat Jenkins contributed to this report.
