Round Two for Paradise

Copyright © 2018

By Ralph F. Couey

Between August 22 and 28, Hurricane Lane battered the Hawai'ian island chain with high winds and record rainfall, ranging from 52 inches on the Big Island to just under 10 on O'ahu.  People are still digging out and the soil remains saturated.  Now, some two weeks later, the state is once again bracing for the onslaught of a major storm.

Hurricane Olivia, as of this morning, is about 650 miles from Honolulu.  Still rated a Category 1 with sustained winds of 85 mph, it is expected to weaken into a strong tropical storm by the time it begins to affect the islands.  A tropical storm warning has been issued for the islands of Hawai'i and Mau'i, and a TS watch for O'ahu.  The storm will begin to affect the state Tuesday, with high winds and heavy rainfall.  While not as much as Lane, it will nonetheless be an an unwanted 15" to 20" addition to areas on the Big Island that experienced some 52 inches of rain less than two weeks ago.  

Governor David Ige has declared a state of emergency and local and state officials are urging residents to prepare.  Working at Target last night, I did see a slight increase in water purchases, but considering that folks really stocked up for Lane, it seems as if everyone is about ready.  The only task remaining is to remove loose items from around the houses and properties.  For this island, the forecast is 40 mph winds and 4" to 8" of rain.  Mau'i and The Big Island may get as much as 20" of rain.  Complicating matters is that the storm has slowed from 15 knots to around 8 knots and is expected to slow even more, which means that the effects of the storm will linger much longer, increasing the risk of flash flooding and landslides.

Now this situation is passing almost undetected by the rest of the country because a truly monster storm, Hurricane Florence is expected to make landfall in the Carolinas as a strong Category 4, perhaps even a Cat 5, affecting an area ranging from Georgia to Washington DC.  The storm will push inland, bring torrential flooding rains as far as the Ohio Valley.  Tens of millions are in the threat cone for this storm, and since the media capitols are all in that area, Florence will occupy the nation's attentions.  But while Olivia is a far less powerful system, it is nonetheless poised to impose significant damage to Hawai'i.  

In my lifetime, I have long experience with significant weather events.  I have been through or very close to severe thunderstorms, floods, blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, (earthquakes, not meteorological events, but still...), in fact the only thing that hasn't happened is to be struck by lightning.  At this point, people usually begin edging away from me.  The point being is that I'm no stranger to natural events, so as this storm approaches, I'm not possessed with mindless panic.

Preparing for something like this is pretty straight forward.  I don't think the winds are powerful enough to require putting up plywood on the windows, and in looking around, I see plenty of canned food and water, so I think we're ready to go.  In any event it will be an interesting twenty-four hours.

We humans have this foolish delusion that we are somehow masters of our fate, an attitude that lasts until a close encounter with what journalists colorfully describe as "nature's fury."  This makes nature seem unnecessarily anthropomorphic and possessed with a strong sense of anger or revenge against the planet's human occupants.  In fact, these are all natural events, driven by those as-yet fully understood dynamics of earth's planetary cycles which are largely indifferent to our presence.  But there are places where people have felt particularly picked on.  Moore, Oklahoma has been struck my more major EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes than just about any other place on earth.  Likewise, the folks on the Big Island of Hawai'i have to be wondering what they've done to deserve what has been inflicted upon them.  It's easy to appreciate that ancient peoples thought that things like this were the results of angered deities, which required all manner of sacrifice to appease them.  

But climate, and therefore weather, is not static.  It is dynamic, and I take issue with those who think that if it's not 72 degrees and sunny that there's something seriously wrong.  My default rule is to expect the unexpected, and understand fully the scope of my responsibility in mitigating those consequences.  It's not a matter of fate or fault, nor anger or indifference; its simply the way things are. 

That being said, I am still concerned about those whose lives are about to be impacted by Olivia and Florence, and I hope and pray that they will survive these events with their lives and possessions intact.  But I also know that in some cases, there is nothing that can be done, except to hunker down or evacuate.  And understand that where nature is concerned, it's not personal.

It's business.