East Molokaʻi resident Saucie Dudoit said the stream bed on their property in Kūpeke is normally dry. But last weekend, it was thundering with water.
“It was roaring, you can hear it coming down from the back of the valley, and all the rocks tumbling and it just coming down, really bad,” she said.
But they were safe — and never lost electricity.
“We always monitor our river, our stream bed, to make sure there's no broken branches, and we try to clear it, especially when we know the storm is coming, because if it's blocked, then it starts overflowing,” she explained.
Dudoit said she and her husband hunkered down and stayed off the roads during the storm.
On Molokaʻi, one coastal road provides access to the island’s east end. It was closed several times during the storm as rivers flooded across it, leaving thick mud and rocks.
Dudoit said there’s towering debris left along the highway in some sections.
“The piles of rocks and dirt that came down from there, was above my truck.”
And the water that carried those rocks was powerful.
“It was just so much water coming off the mountain,” Dudoit said. “You know, never seen anything like that before in my, my lifetime. I mean, I've seen it go down the highway before, but not like this. This has been crazy.”
The storm caused cancellations of the island’s only airline, and vehicle access was also temporarily cut off to Kaunakakai from the west side of the island as a bridge flooded.
While highway crews work to clear mud from the roads, Dudoit is also concerned about the effects of extensive sediment washing onto the island’s extensive coral reef.
“What's going to happen to our reefs and fish with all the runoff? Our neighbor went down and he said he saw a bunch of squid washed up on the shore. They were all dead, because it's too much fresh water going in,” she said. “It's a big circle of life that is going to be affected.”
While longer-term impacts are yet to be seen, in the immediate aftermath of the storm on Molokaʻi, it’s all about checking on each other.
“The beauty about it is, you know, our neighbors helping neighbors, right? Are you OK? You need help? That kind of thing,” Dudoit told HPR. “And then we have all these businesses that are posting too, ‘Hey, you guys need cleanup?’ You know, ‘I have my little excavator available.’ It's really nice to see everybody trying to work together.”
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