Here’s what this bad boy looked like a few days ago.
Tropical Storm Daniel (downgraded from a hurricane tonight) is headed straight for the Big Island. We can probably expect rain, wind and ocean surge.
Lots of people are under the mistaken impression that Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa protects us from hurricanes but that’s not true. These storm systems are so big it’s like a Hummer barrelling over a rock in the road.
Be prepared for power outages. In my experience the outages don’t directly come from the storms, they come from cars hitting utility poles from driving on the wet roads.
I have lived in Kona for six years and I have not seen a storm yet. They warn us. People buy their toilet paper. Then it gets cloudy. When they tell me a hurricane is on the way I say, "I'll believe it when I see it."
Also note that whenever our paper has a story about drought it starts to rain.
I've seen three really bad storms in Kona. The first broke several boats free in the bay and destroyed some of them. The second was surge from Hurricane Iniki, lots of surge from that hitting the shoreline. The third was in 2004 and you can see the post about that here: www.mediabaron.com/b…
I was a Boy Scout so I tend to be prepared, if not overly so.
Welcome to "An Inconvenient Truth" – even the Big Island can't escape Al Gore weather.
If one ever hits, it'll shred those cheaply built homes all over the island. Hope it spares you guys.