Western Hawaii islands survey damage after Hurricane Lowell passes by

Damaging winds and heavy rains from Hurricane Lowell caused significant damage on Hawaii’s western islands, knocking out power to thousands, ripping up stretches of road and drenching homes and stores with mud.

Fierce winds downed trees and caused widespread power outages on the island of Kauai, home to 73,000 residents. The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative reported that nearly all of its roughly 35,000 members were without power on Tuesday.

Hurricane Lowell did not make a direct hit, but passed west of the islands in the overnight hours on Tuesday. Still, massive waves crashed on the coast, pushing piles of sand and lava rocks on land. Fierce winds knocked over trees and downed power lines. Worst hit were the islands of Kauai and the tiny island of Ni’ihau, which has fewer than 100 permanent residents.

There was extensive damage across Kauai, and crews were using heavy equipment to push trees and debris off the roads, said Derek Kawakami, mayor of Kauai county.

Authorities were still assessing the destruction, and asked residents to move around with vigilance. Elton Ushio, the Kauai emergency management agency chief, said on Tuesday that the county was tracking 198 active hazard reports. Since then, however, officials have made public few details about the extent of the damage, reported the local news outlet Honolulu Civil Beat.

Kauai’s North Shore and Westside highways were impassable due to flooding and debris on Tuesday, the outlet reported. In the Port Allen small boat harbor, several vessels sank and piers were destroyed. Storm surge came into Hanapēpē Stadium, officials said.

While Kauai and Ni’ihau bore the brunt of the storm, Oahu, the chain’s most populous island, was battered by rain and high surf. Road crews were clearing sand and rocks from a major route along the island’s western edge after floodwaters topped a coastal highway, north of Honolulu.

One man died on Oahu on Monday evening when a tree hit his tent, the Hawaii governor, Josh Green, said.

Lowell is one of several storms that have hit the islands in recent months. In August, Tropical Storm Lala brushed past the islands and stirred up landslides, washing away about 100 homes and causing widespread power outages.

The storms come as a powerful El Niño has formed in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean.

Temperatures are so high that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) predicts a “historic event that would exceed the strength of previous El Niño events dating back to 1950”.

El Niño, a natural climate pattern when sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become unusually warm, tends to promote hurricane activity in the Pacific while suppressing it in the Atlantic.

The human-caused climate crisis can amplify El Niño’s effects because a warmer ocean and atmosphere increase the availability of energy and moisture for extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall.