Hurricane Lowell knocks out a port in Hawaii that is one island's main source for food and fuel
HONOLULU (AP) — Crews began repairing the only cargo port on one of Hawaii's smallest main islands while power was being restored to another island Thursday, two days after Hurricane Lowell skirted along the state's western edge. At least two deaths were linked to the storm.
On the island of Kauai, intense wind and surging waves damaged oceanfront resorts, ripped apart roads and knocked out power, while on Lanai, a harbor that supplies much of the food and fuel to its 3,300 residents was inoperable and will take about two weeks to repair, state officials said.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said the overall destruction to Hawaii’s infrastructure, businesses and homes may be comparable to that of Hurricane Iniki — a Category 4 storm that walloped Kauai in 1992 and caused $3 billion in damage.
While it has been a relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane season, there have been four hurricanes in the Pacific since the beginning of August. A new tropical storm formed on Thursday.
In Hawaii, first responders on Kauai's south end found the body of a 74-year-old man on Wednesday near the shoreline. Authorities believe his death was related to the storm surge, police said.
Another man was killed on Oahu when a large tree fell on his tent Monday during the storm, the governor said. The man was homeless and living in a park, Green said.
The Democratic governor on Wednesday asked President Donald Trump to issue a major disaster declaration to expedite federal help for Kauai and Maui counties.
“We cannot wait for every damaged road, utility pole, harbor and public facility to be assigned a dollar value before asking the federal government to act,” Green said in making the request.
Lowell knocked out power to many of Kauai's 73,000 residents on Tuesday but electricity was being restored, with the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative saying the following day that power was back on at three hospitals. Across the island, just under 16,000 customers were without power Thursday, according to poweroutage.us.
Images of the destruction showed that the storm blew out windows of ground floor apartments, downed power lines and tossed lava rocks onto roadways.
At Lanai's main harbor, the storm opened a sinkhole, damaged part of the pier and scattered containers in the water, according to the state's Transportation Department.
Planning was underway on other options to get supplies to the island, which sees only a few visitors. Billionaire Larry Ellison bought nearly all of the island in 2012 for about $300 million from the owner of agriculture and real estate company Castle & Cooke Inc.
Lowell has since been downgraded to a tropical storm and was moving westward over open water. But Tropical Storm Norbert formed Thursday in the Pacific, although it wasn't threatening land, forecasters said.
The storm was far southwest of the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect, the center said. Some gradual strengthening was forecast over the coming days.
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