Still recovering from Hurricane Lala, Hawaii prepares for a possible weekend cyclone

HONOLULU (AP) — Communities still recovering from last weekend’s hurricane in Hawaii could get pounded again in coming days from another tropical system gaining strength over warm Pacific waters.

Hurricane Lala tore roofs off houses, uprooted trees, covered roads in mud and rocks and left many households without electricity. With thousands of homes and businesses still in the dark Thursday, forecasters warned yet another tropical cyclone is likely to approach the islands soon.

“We’re worried about people going through this again,” said John Bravender, a warning coordinator meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Honolulu. “Normally we would say pay attention to the forecast just in case. Now we’re saying take action now.”

He said a tropical depression was just starting to become more organized, and while the system is not expected to take exactly the same track or even dump potentially as much rain as Lala, the ground is already saturated from the recent hurricane.

The depression moving west and northwest could become a tropical storm in the coming hours and pass near or south of Hawaii’s Big Island over the weekend or early next week, the U.S. Central Pacific Hurricane Center said. That system could dump up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain on the Big Island and trigger life-threatening flooding, mudslides and rip currents, it added.

On Hawaii’s Big Island, there’s ‘tension in the air’

“There’s definitely tension in the air” at the thought of more rain in communities that floodwaters turned into rivers, said Tiffany Edwards Hunt, a teacher living in Keaau, on the east side of the Big Island. “There were some areas that were completely washed out.”

Some people paddled to safety on surfboards, she said.

Hunt went to the area’s grocery store but hesitated to buy food in case the power goes out again. Her home was without electricity from Saturday to Monday, she said, but some neighborhoods were still in the dark days later.

The Hawaiian Electric utility said it expects nearly all affected customers on the Big Island to have power restored, except for certain remote and severely damaged areas.

Many families with limited resources are worried about spending more money to prepare for another storm, Hunt said Thursday.

“We’re at the beginning of the hurricane season,” she said. “We know how to pull it all off in our community. It’s just having to mentally and emotionally prepare for it.”

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green and other state officials, held a news conference Thursday afternoon to update Lala recovery progress and urge people to prepare for the next storm.

“These hurricanes are very serious. There were many houses that were destroyed,” Green said. He said the next storm could be similar in strength but there’s still a lot of uncertainty though “we’re going to prepare.”

Officials urged people low on emergency supplies after Lala to restock up to 14 days of food, pet food, medicine and other essentials and closely monitor the storm’s progress.

A 93-year-old beloved teacher died fleeing Lala’s floods

Residents found the body of a man in his 60s in a pasture Tuesday, a day after the recovery of the body of May Doi, 93, whom neighbors said was trying to escape from floodwaters in her home. Doi was a beloved former kindergarten teacher who taught generations of residents in a small town on the Big Island.

“She taught grandkids of her students,” said ʻĀina Akamu, a former student of Doi who is now a vice principal at a local school. “She was a fixture in this community.”

The highest total rainfall from Lala, 43.54 inches (1.1 meters), was recorded on the northeast coast of the Big Island, the National Weather Service said. Dozens of homes were washed from foundations, bridges were damaged and about 13,200 customers on the Big Island remained without power Thursday.

Help from California to restore power

The Hawaiian Electric utility said that as of Thursday afternoon, there were still about 13,000 customers without power on the Big Island. The company expected that nearly all of them would have electricity restored by Friday, except for in certain remote and severely damaged areas.

The utility said crews from Southern California Edison arrived to help repair equipment and restore power.

Lala is the first major hurricane of 2026 in the Central Pacific Ocean. Now well west of Hawaii’s main islands, Lala had top sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph) on Thursday and had begun pummeling the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument — a remote area at the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The impacts were being felt between Lisianski Island and Maro Reef, authorities said.

Forecasters said Lala would cross the waters of the marine national monument for a few days at hurricane strength despite some gradual weakening.

One charter boat heads far out to sea to avoid stormy weather

Even in that remote area, people were seeking safety. A charter boat carrying a 16-member crew dedicated to removing marine plastics and abandoned fishing nets from the shores of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands got out of Lala’s projected path.

Kevin O’Brien, president of the nonprofit Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project, said the vessel left Lisianski Island on Monday and headed hundreds of miles (kilometers) out to sea away from the storm.

“We were ready for it,” O’Brien said. “We keep on our toes out here during hurricane season.”

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Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writer John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed.