HILO, Hawaii – As the sun rose over the Hawaiian Islands Sunday, the full impact of what was then Hurricane Horn was being felt across the Big Island.
Horn battered the Big Island and coastline over the weekend as a Category 1 hurricane, packing flooding rain, damaging winds and dangerous surf, before weakening by Monday morning and becoming a strong tropical storm.
More than 21,000 utility customers lost power as Hurricane Horn passed over the Big Island Sunday afternoon, with most of the power outages reported on the Big Island. The number of outages increased in Maui and Honolulu as dangerously high surf pounded the south-facing shores of the Big Island, just south of where Hurricane Horn passed.
Around 4 a.m. Sunday, tide pools formed quickly at Black Sand Beach in Punalu’u on the southeast shore, causing dangerous surf and forcing access to the beach to be closed. Later in the day, a FOX Weather photojournalist captured footage of large waves continuing to crash into Pahoa, sending huge spray onto the rocky shore.
Horn passed less than 50 miles south of the Big Island with winds of 85 mph, dumping a large amount of rain on the islands. Rainfall quickly exceeded a foot in many parts of the Big Island, with more than 18 inches recorded in Hakalau, according to National Weather Service data.
Video from Fox Weather showed water flowing along an access road in Pahala, Hawaii, and county police said the water had overflowed at least three sections of the Hawaii Belt Road (Highway 11), which circles the Big Island.
The Hawaii Department of Transportation reported several road closures on Hawaii Island, including Highway 11 in Kau, Naalehu and Miloli, due to flooding, downed trees and damaged roads.
Department of Transportation crews have also been busy responding to the effects of Tropical Storm Horn on other islands, including Maui, where a landslide temporarily closed part of the Hana Highway on Sunday morning.
But there was beauty beneath the storm’s raging waves and flooding. After the worst of the storm had passed, hikers witnessed the raging waters of Hilo’s Rainbow Falls, made even more powerful by the torrential rains.
The falls did not have their characteristic rainbow, but tourists noted that water was only “trickling” from the falls last week. Most of Hawaii is in at least moderate drought conditions, with parts of the Big Island and Maui in extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
