POIPU, Kauai >> Matthew
Oliver was born and raised on a lot three houses from the ocean on Hoona Road. He was 5 when Hurricane Iniki destroyed his home.
His dad rebuilt it, and at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday he walked into his front yard. The house was still standing, the debris wasn’t too crazy. Maybe Hurricane Lowell wasn’t too bad, he thought.
Then he walked about
500 feet toward the beach.
The vacation homes down Hoona Road, particularly the area near Baby Beach, were destroyed. The house
closest to the beach at
5160 Hoona Road had been lifted off of its foundation, turned 90 degrees and pushed back.
Inside the home, the devastation of open walls and flipped appliances was met with perfectly stacked bowls in a cabinet and a single shot glass untouched on the corner of a shelf. The hallway was made impassable by a refrigerator while puzzles remained perfectly stacked in the hallway. Kitchen knives were untouched while the dishwasher was half exposed outside.
“I was in disbelief,” Oliver said. “We were expecting some weather, but when we saw the devastation, it was like something out of a movie.”
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Lowell passed Kauai as a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mph sustained winds overnight Monday. It knocked out power for about 90% of customers on Kauai, with its biggest impacts seen on the island’s south shore and west coast.
The worst destruction appeared to be along the south shore’s coastline, with oceanfront properties and businesses from Baby Beach to at least Lawai Beach completely destroyed.
Several of the homes
that were destroyed on Hoona Road either hadn’t existed before Iniki or were rebuilt, several local residents told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The majority of the homes destroyed are vacation homes, they said.
Oliver said the storm-driven swell, which was
30 feet at its peak according to Kauai County, appeared to be the prime culprit.
“The swell and the surge of the waves was astronomical,” he said.
Oliver and a friend walked the road to see if any neighbors needed help, and found a group of people that needed help evacuating from a two-story house that had its first floor overtaken by the ocean.
“They didn’t evacuate this place,” he said, noting that before Iniki the county knocked on their door to tell them to evacuate their homes. Kauai County advised voluntary evacuations along south- and west-facing shores via a news release and social media update, though no official warnings or watches were implemented.
Koloa resident Derrick Ledesma is the handyman for several of the vacation homes on Hoona Road.
“I’ve been in most of these houses,” Ledesma said. “This is one of my main streets right here.”
He was surveying his regular homes and reporting back to the owners, he said, and when he arrived around noon the water was shooting out of one the homes “like a geyser.”
He found the main water valve broken right in front of the house. It took about a half hour to figure out how to turn off the water, he said.
“It’s been over an hour since we got it off and you can see a huge difference,” he said around 4 p.m. “It was a big puddle-like lake in the middle and it’s already receding.”
By 6 p.m., the ponded water had mostly been absorbed, leaving behind heavy mud with piles of debris sinking into it.
Mallory Olson’s best friend’s house was one of the oceanfront homes on Hoona Road that were destroyed. Covered in mud, with her hair pulled back, she said she was amazed by the community who came to help.
“There’s people from Omao and people from different places,” she said. “They were like, ‘We don’t have power, so we might as well help.”
She said she moved a refrigerator out of the road with a girl who was visiting the island on vacation, while others arrived with shovels and gloves to help move debris to the road.
“I just want to say thank you to the community,” she said. “It’s really great to see the community come together to help.”
Meanwhile along the shoreline, residents estimated the coast lost at
least 15 feet in some areas, while other areas lost around 3 feet.
First-floor condos in front of the local surf spot P.K. had windows smashed, with appliances and furniture pushed together toward the back of the units. In one unit, a layer of grass was lifted from out front and moved back at least 30 feet, landing on top of a coffee table and broken TV stand.
A bench next to a coconut tree on which local kids would sit to watch surf was gone, replaced by a giant hole in the ground.
While the property damage was not nearly as severe as Hurricane Iniki, the damage to the coastline appeared worse, said Kalaheo resident Cory Riley. His home wasn’t severely damaged in Lowell, he said, so he drove down the south shore to see if anyone needed help to pass time while his power was still out.
“The coastline destruction is unique with this situation,” Riley said.
He didn’t remember as dramatic a change in the coastline after Iniki, he said, though he was 5 years old.
For now, Riley hopes the businesses and infrastructure can be rebuilt. Local kids learn how to surf at a break there, with surf contests every summer. Born and raised on Kauai, he’s surfed there for as long as he can remember.
“This is a pretty important local spot,” he said.
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