PARADISE

BURIED

Azeka Place - Makai

This image is looking southwest, from (what I remember as) the Long's Center, across south Kihei Road  This is about 24 hours after the rains diminished.  All of Hawai'i was hit by two huge Kona storms this week.  Highways were closed and the town of Kihei was virtually isolated.  South Kihei Road was buried under about 3'-4' of water flowing at approx. 20mph.

From what I have read and seen, this was even worse than the huge storms of 2007 and 2005.

The Kihei side of Maui is basically a desert.  Typically less than 10" of rain per year.  This time around, there was so much precipitation that the west slopes of Haleakala actually had waterfalls.  During the 15 years I lived on Maui, there had never been waterfalls on the west side of the mountain.

Obviously, this in no way compares in magnitude to the floods in Australia or Brazil.

Looking East from south Kihei Road towards FoodLand.  The "Triangle" is off-camera, right.

"Let's all be careful out there!"