Hurricane Lowell batters Hawaii with widespread outages, flooding threats

Hurricane Lowell swept across Hawaii early Tuesday morning, leaving the island of Kauai in particular struggling with the immediate aftermath of fierce winds, downed trees, and a near-total collapse of electrical service. The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative reported that virtually all of its members—serving the island's 73,000 residents—had lost power by early Tuesday. Across the entire state, about 42,000 customers were without electricity as of mid-afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us. The storm's damage extended beyond the power grid: boulders and debris blocked numerous roads, trapping people in their neighborhoods and complicating rescue and assessment efforts. One waterfront home in Kauai was lifted entirely off its foundation and deposited across the street, a stark visual marker of the storm's force.

The small Kauai community of Hanalei bore the brunt of the rainfall, recording 17.76 inches by early Tuesday, with forecasters warning that some areas of Kauai could receive up to 24 inches before the system moved on. The threat of flash flooding and mudslides loomed over multiple islands—Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island all faced the possibility of significant precipitation. The National Hurricane Center specifically cautioned that the Big Island could experience "significant flash flooding and mudslides" in low-lying and urban zones. By late Tuesday morning, Lowell's maximum sustained winds had decreased to 75 mph as the center moved about 230 miles northwest of Lihue, traveling north at 15 mph. Some gusts had reached 80 mph during the height of the storm, though the sustained winds measured just above 50 mph at Lihue Airport.

The human toll of the outages became apparent quickly. Andrew Davis Henry, a diabetic resident of Kauai, found himself without power or cell service and unable to refrigerate his insulin—medication he described as essential to his survival. "I need that to live, so if I don't have that, it's going to be a bad day for me," he told CBS News. Dave Reed, a tourist who had come to Kauai for a wedding, rode out the storm with family and friends. His experience left him shaken. "It was actually pretty scary," he said. "I always said I want to ride out a hurricane. I never want to do it again." He added that he and his group had the chance to evacuate but chose to stay—a decision he now regretted.

Emergency management officials moved quickly to prevent further crises. Elton Ushio, administrator of the local emergency management agency, urged residents to remain off the roads as damage assessments were just beginning. "As the light comes up and the extent of the damage from Hurricane Lowell comes into focus, we want to ensure that no additional emergency situations arise unnecessarily," he said. Gov. Josh Green had preemptively closed schools and government offices on three islands for Tuesday. On Oahu, road crews worked to clear sand and rocks from a major coastal highway on the western edge after floodwaters had topped the roadway north of Honolulu.

By early Tuesday morning, the immediate hurricane threat had diminished. Warnings for Kauai and the tiny island of Niihau—home to fewer than 100 permanent residents—were lifted, as was the tropical storm warning for Oahu, the state's most populous island with close to 1 million residents. The storm's center had passed west of the islands and was moving away. Yet the danger was far from over. Eric Blake of the National Hurricane Center cautioned that flooding and mudslide risks would persist through the day across the affected areas. The storm was expected to weaken in the coming days, but the immediate challenge for residents and officials remained clear: assess the damage, restore power, and manage the ongoing threat of water-driven disasters across multiple islands.