Heavy rains hitting already soaked soil turned normally placid Kapaia Stream into a two-pronged, raging torrent, changed Wailua Falls into a huge, brown blast, caused two sinkholes at the Kaua‘i Marriott Resort & Beach Club (one ate a car), flooded
Heavy rains hitting already soaked soil turned normally placid Kapaia Stream into a two-pronged, raging torrent, changed Wailua Falls into a huge, brown blast, caused two sinkholes at the Kaua‘i Marriott Resort & Beach Club (one ate a car), flooded downtown Waimea, caused numerous road closures, prompted some voluntary evacuations, and kept emergency and road crews on their toes from early yesterday.
Happy New Year, Kaua‘i. Shelters were established at the Koloa, Waimea and Kapa‘a neighborhood centers, but after nobody showed up they were closed down, said Cyndi Mei Ozaki, county public information officer. Voluntary evacuations were suggested in areas of Wailua and Hanapepe, and some residential flooding that got into homes happened in parts of Koloa, too.
For the two-day period ending at 2 p.m. yesterday, Wailua received 9.55 inches of rain, Hanalei got 8.42, Port Allen had eight, Lihu‘e Airport received 7.58, and Po‘ipu got 6.82. “It’s kind of been a two-day event,” said Robert Ballard, National Weather Service forecaster in Honolulu.
The island was under a flash-flood warning most of yesterday morning, and a flash-flood watch for most of the day.
Today’s weather was expected to be “quite a bit better,” with the system that dumped the rain on Kaua‘i moving down the chain. Kaua‘i should see a “much more settled weather pattern than what you had,” he said.
