Tropical Storm Lala cuts power to 180,000 in Hawaii, Midwest floods kill seven

Hurricane Lala made landfall on Hawaii's Big Island as a Category 1 storm Saturday, packing winds near 75 miles per hour and dumping up to 25 inches of rain in some areas. More than 40,000 customers initially lost power according to early tallies, with later counts from poweroutage.us reaching as high as 220,000 across the islands before dropping to roughly 183,000 by Sunday afternoon. The hardest hit zones sat on the Big Island and in Maui County, where fallen trees downed transmission poles and flooded roads blocked repair crews.

Hawaiian Electric crews worked through the night on the Hamakua Coast after multiple structures collapsed along a 42-mile stretch of lines. Officials warned customers to prepare for outages that could stretch overnight or longer. State reports confirmed at least 100 homes damaged, with flash flooding described by one local official as unlike anything seen before. The National Hurricane Center issued repeated alerts about life-threatening mudslides on steep terrain, projecting 10 to 20 inches of rain on the Big Island and several more inches on eastern Maui.

By Sunday afternoon the storm had weakened to a tropical storm with winds near 65 miles per hour and was tracking west toward Kauai County at 20 miles per hour. Warnings remained active there while earlier alerts for Maui and Oahu were lifted. Governor Josh Green noted the one confirmed fatality tied to a car accident amid the weather, and state leaders urged residents to stay off beaches and roads. Projections showed the system clearing the islands by Monday morning.

The scale of the power loss raised immediate questions about grid resilience in a state already distant from mainland support. Utility statements pointed to trees and saturated ground as primary causes, yet residents on the Big Island reported extended blackouts even as the storm moved on. Repair timelines remained uncertain, with crews facing continued rain and limited access.

Separate storm systems battering the mainland added to the picture of uneven federal and state readiness. In Indiana, days of heavy rain and flooding since August 11 produced at least seven deaths, including a four-year-old boy killed when a tree fell into his bedroom and a 31-year-old cyclist who bypassed barricades on a washed-out road. Bodies recovered from rivers and collapsed roadways underscored how quickly local infrastructure failed under prolonged downpours.

Hawaii officials emphasized that the worst rainfall had passed, yet the mismatch between early outage figures and later tallies left many wondering about accurate tracking during the height of the event. Power companies cited safety concerns for delaying work, while households dealt with spoiled food, lost refrigeration, and limited communication. The storm's path spared Oahu the heaviest impact, but the cumulative strain on island resources highlighted ongoing vulnerabilities in remote U.S. territories.

As Lala drifts farther west, attention turns to how quickly power can be restored and whether repeated weather threats will prompt lasting upgrades to aging lines and drainage systems. Local leaders continue to stress staying indoors until conditions fully stabilize.