Residents across Hawaii are taking steps to prepare for the potential impacts of back-to-back hurricanes, as Hone was exiting Monday and Gilma slowly approached from the eastern Pacific.
In Lower Puna, just south of Hilo in the Big Island, Laurie Lyon-Makaimoku and her family took the tarps off their outdoor garage structure and pulled out their camping stove and propane tank.
They also picked avocados and breadfruit from the trees on their property in anticipation of Gilma’s gusty winds.
“We got a ton of rain,” she told USA TODAY. “Sunday afternoon, everything started settling down, but it was raining all day Friday. We were doing our storm prep in the rain. But the worst of it was on Saturday.”
Hone strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane as it crossed south of the Big Island early Sunday, dumping over a foot of rain across portions of the island and up to 18 inches in some areas. Some major roads flooded, waterways swelled and thousands of homes and businesses lost power, but there were no reports of major damage. By night, Hone had weakened into a tropical storm as it pushed to the west of the Hawaiian islands.
Several beaches across the Big Island were closed Monday and five public schools canceled classes because of power outages and dangerous road conditions, the Hawaii County website said. The school where Lyon-Makaimoku’s children attend shut down Monday after a tree fell and took out power on the main campus.
“We are moving into the recovery stage,” Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth said in a Facebook livestream Sunday afternoon. He said emergency crews will inspect damage across the island this week as linemen restore power and authorities begin preparations for Hurricane Gilma. Blackouts were down to just 2,000 across the state by midmorning, according to poweroutage.us.
“Gilma is coming so … even through we’re done with this one, it’s good to start preparing for the next one,” Roth said.