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So, is everyone scurrying about prepping for the upcoming tropical storm? Looks like it may be a repeat of Iselle from a couple years ago. But, these things can veer one way or another and do all sorts of strange things. After Iselle, our part of the island was without power for a day or so, some folks further outside of town were without power for weeks. Puna got hit a lot harder, though, and was out of power, road access, water, etc., etc. Most of that was from the albizia trees that fell all over the place.
The house we were in when Iselle showed up has big picture windows. We boarded them up and then had a really dark house inside when the power went out. The house we're in now has multi-pane windows and if a pane breaks, it's easy enough to fix them so we probably won't board up all the windows this time.
If grid power goes down, the solar panels will keep one circuit live (this is a feature on the inverter and is automatic which is nice). The fridge and a cellphone charging station are on that circuit, so if the power goes down we should be good for the fridge & phones. Providing, of course, that the cell towers haven't gone out.
Water is County and gravity fed, I think. The water tanks and reservoirs are all uphill, anyway. Plus there's a 120 gallon (electric unfortunately) water heater full of water if the County water stops.
Stove is propane and can be started without electricity. Or we could hook it into the refrigerator circuit for the electronics on it. There's a stove top coffee maker, so we're good, there, too.
Guess we'll pick up some feed for the critters tomorrow and maybe a gallon or two of milk and check the level of propane in the tanks for the house, fill up the tanks on the cars and call ourselves prepped. How's everyone else doing?
With 4-5 storms currently lined up, buying some water isn't a terrible idea - what I don't understand is why people already don't have prep items. A natural disaster can strike anytime on the BI and to a lesser degree the other islands (earthquakes should not be underestimated with active volcanos and shifting fault lines).
With 4-5 storms currently lined up, buying some water isn't a terrible idea - what I don't understand is why people already don't have prep items. A natural disaster can strike anytime on the BI and to a lesser degree the other islands (earthquakes should not be underestimated with active volcanos and shifting fault lines).
It is definitely looking uglier on the weather.com site.
Fortunately, it is not a hurricane - but sustained 50mph winds will cause damage. If it goes even slightly more south than the current path - that is even worse - the northwest side of a tropical storm/hurricane is the windiest and would have a high impact to Hilo.
With Iselle, it pretty much fell apart after it landed in Puna and knocked over a LOT of albizia trees. HELCO (the Big Island's version of HECO) has cut down a lot more of them so hopefully there won't be as many falling on power lines.
So far, as of about 2:30 on Friday afternoon, it's been nothing more than intermittent rain showers, some of which have been heavy. Driving back from the feed store we went holoholo up mountain roads checking on some friends. There was already water running across the roads there, but not enough to cause any trouble at all. But that also means the ground is already saturated, so all rainfall will pretty much go immediately to run off.
Not too much run on the grocery store here in town, there was still Spam, rice & toilet paper on the shelves. Water, too. They said if the power goes out, they will still be open but on a cash only basis. Apparently, they escort folks around the store with flashlights for the things they need. I'm not sure if they have emergency generators to run their refrigeration or not. I'd expect if they have enough power for refrigeration, lights wouldn't be much more of a power use.
Anybody heard if the storm is expected to last until it reaches any of the islands other than Hawaii island? (Although, guess I should go check the weather site, shouldn't I?)
It is shifting a bit south of the 11 a.m. forecast track. Next update at 5 p.m. will likely show it landfalling directly over Hilo and subsequently tracking it over the center of the rest of the islands. Weather is going to start getting nasty late tonight/very early tomorrow am for Hilo.
If it crosses directly over the other islands, it will be the first time in history a tropical storm has ever made landfall on Maui or Oahu. Even sustained winds of 45 mph will cause significant damage as homes here have never in all history experienced those kinds of sustained wind loads. Mountainous terrain will accelerate these winds and we could see gusts that exceed 60 mph. Let's hope the Big Island's mountains tear it apart and this ends up being just a rain event.
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