Hurricane Lala strengthened to Category 1 status on Saturday as it came within 100 miles of the Big Island, dropping more than 20 inches of rain in certain places, knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and leaving one dead in a traffic accident caused by the storm, officials said. The storm came close enough to inflict a significant amount of damage in several parts of the island’s higher elevations and southern communities, but did not make a direct landfall.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green revealed details of the death, a man killed in a crash on Noho o le Honoah Highway near South Point, the Big Island’s tip, in the following video update Saturday evening. Regie says: “Stay off the roads, it is still a dangerous place to be. County officials said by nightfall, there was a record number of roads closed and utility crews were pulled back from repair work because strong winds at night made it unsafe for them to continue.

A tropical depression can burst into a hurricane in just a few hours.

It all turns into a hurricane in a few hours.

Lala was classified as a tropical storm by the National Hurricane Center a couple of days ago, and the NHC upgraded it to a hurricane on Saturday morning when maximum sustained winds climbed above 74 mph. Average wind increased through the day, topping out at around 80 mph as the eyewall (the ring of strongest wind and rain surrounding a hurricane), brushed south coast of the island 30 miles offshore at its closest point, about 5 p.m. local time.

The journey around the Big Island combined a dramatic encounter with the land without a landfall. On exposed slopes and ridgelines, the elevation of Hawaii’s highest point, Mauna Kea, blowing wind gusts were recorded at 140mph, which is a reminder that a hurricane can be much more violent at higher altitudes. This danger had been anticipated by meteorologists, who have often noted that true gusts are much stronger up the hills and mountains on the windward side of the island than measurements taken closer to the ocean.

Landfall plays a major role, but avoided for a reason.

Landfall was important — and avoided at the right time.

It’s rare for a direct hit hurricane to strike the Big Island. The previous Hawaii hurricane to reach the islands was powerful Hurricane Iniki, a Category 4 in 1992 that killed six people and inflicting estimated damage of $3 billion on Kauai. Earlier in the day, forecasters had said that Lala could make a rare direct attack on the Big Island itself, a first for Hawaii in over 100 years that the state has been tracking hurricanes. On Saturday evening, a National Weather Service meteorologist reported that landfall was off the table as the storm’s center continued to remain offshore and troublesome as it interacted with the island and slowly weakened.

That’s not a distinction residents face with the storm’s effects that it sounds like, though. Lala’s outer wind field and rain bands were broad enough despite missing the coastline to generate hurricane force winds on portions of the Big Island and tropical storm strength winds were experienced throughout Maui County, onto the Islands of Oahu and Kauai.

Rainfall and Flooding

The heaviest impact of the storm was from its rainfall. As the storm neared, National Hurricane Center advisories gradually raised their forecasts to 10 to 20 inches for the Big Island, with isolated amounts up to 25 inches for the heaviest areas. The forecasts were quite near to the mark, too, because Nāhuku, a location within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island, was last reporting 20.74 inches of rain by Saturday night, as the storm continued. Forecasters were specifically warning of life-threatening flash flooding and mud slides caused by this amount of rain on the steep volcanic island that was in effect Sunday as the storm moved off.

Storm surge of up to 3 feet was also experienced along coastal waters with large waves and hazardous rip currents making it wise to keep people out of water close to shorelines.

Power Outages and Emergency Response

The size of the outages increased as the day progressed. Hawaiian Electric said on Sunday around 5,000 to 6,000 customers were without power and in the evening utility tracking site PowerOutage.us estimated that state-wide utilities were affecting over 84,000 customers, most of which were on the Big Island. He said that at a minimum, 19 buildings lost their roofs, and while the airlines were making adjustments for the storm, more than 190 flights in and out of Hawaii were delayed.

Green had already issued a declaration of state of emergency on Thursday ahead of the storm’s impact to potential disaster relief funds and allotted the state’s agencies to help the response. Some 180 of the Hawaii National Guard were called into service to help. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on Friday afternoon closed most of its grounds as a precautionary measure while the state Department of Education postponed all school-sponsored extracurricular activities for the weekend—though Friday night, no word was yet available on whether schools would reopen Monday.

The Big Island, which is in the jurisdiction of Alderman Kimo Alameda, the mayor of Hawaii County, said before the storm the effects would be “block by block” with high surf for those closer to the ocean, high winds for those in exposed ridges, and flooding potential for those in lower or steep terrain. However, as the storm moved over the island, it was seen as that patchwork of threats and damage reports were reported all over the island, not just in one location.

Looking Ahead

Lala will slowly dissipate as it moves further west and will still remain south of the remaining Hawaiian Islands through early next week, although officials warned some scatter shot possible as the storm was still in the process of interacting with the Big Island terrain. The immediate issues for residents are “persistence of flood and mudslide hazard in saturated areas of the county,” a speedy power restoration and a thorough damage assessment that won’t start until it’s safe for crews to return to the roads, which is anticipated as soon as Monday. The reopening of Hawaii schools and how fast the 84,000-plus customers have power restored to their homes will be early markers of recovery.