Hurricanes are interesting to watch developing and for days you can see their movements toward you. We kept getting advice on what to expect and what to do about it when it does happen. So with Nina in 1957, the
Hurricanes are interesting to watch developing and for days you can see their movements toward you. We kept getting advice on what to expect and what to do about it when it does happen.
So with Nina in 1957, the newspapers and the radio were our source of information. There was some Television on Kaua‘i but not full coverage. We got a telephone call from my Aunt Edith Plews to be sure to have one window opened a bit on the lee side of the house.
At Kipu we had battened down as best as we could at the stables and then everyone went home to care for their own houses.
Our water supply came from a spring in the hill of the Knudsen gap area, and it was a gravity flow situation all the way to Kipu we didn’t keep a large supply of drinking water.
The brunt of the storm hit in the late afternoon, and before it passed us it was dark so we could not see what was happening.
Nancy and I collected our children, the youngest just two years old and David the oldest was eight.
During a lull in the wind Nancy asked me to go into Rick’s room to get a blanket for him. I did and as I was closing the door into our bedroom a gust of wind blew a Norfolk Island Pine branch through the window shattering glass all over his room. Luckily I had closed the door so no glass got into our bedroom.
We kept hearing branches hitting our front door but we couldn’t see what was going on. Nobody wanted to get near a window.
The next morning we saw the damage, we could not open the front door from the inside because the lanai was covered with about six feet of broken branches from the Norfolk Pine trees.
A little later I got to see the road into Kipu from the Hamano Store to the stables.
From my house to the store it was just one big pile of broken branches at least 3 feet deep. It took us all of that day and a half more to clear enough road to open one lane of traffic, but it took us three weeks to clear the whole road of branches from the road and shoulders.
The pastures were another story, the branches made wonderful firewood, plenty of pitch and hard wood.
Everybody wanted some so we were saved from toting all the branches to the dump.
The livestock came through the storm okay. The cattle would all get into an open pasture and face the wind and when it changed they would turn to face the oncoming wind. The calves would lie down facing the wind through out the storm.
Our domestic pigs that were pastured were the best. They would find a damp spot and root a trench into the wind and get into the trench and wallow as deep as they could get into the mud and it seemed that they went to sleep until the storm was over.
After the wind stopped blowing they got out of their nest and looked for something to eat.
