Two Kona Storms Brought 50 Inches Of Rain To Oahu: "I've Never Seen Anything Like It"

[hatrack]

Eddie Oroyan’s farm was thriving when the storms hit. He and his wife had started LewaTerra Farm last year on a gorgeous stretch of land on the north shore of Oahu. They were delivering vegetables to customers in the community, selling at farmer’s markets and to local restaurants. Then, on the week of 10 March, a first kona low storm hit the island, bringing copious amounts of water, flooding their land and wiping out crops. Nearly all their papayas were gone. And the tomatoes didn’t survive. But the couple quickly began cleaning, replanting and tying down crops, confident that they would get back on their feet shortly.

“It was looking really positive. We were like, OK, we’re going to make it out of this,” Oroyan said. But days later the Hawaiian Islands were hit with yet another storm – this one even more perilous. It inundated neighborhoods, leading to more than 200 rescues, washing houses off their foundations and leaving wide swaths of the land underwater. Oroyan and his wife evacuated in chest-deep water. They returned to find an almost complete loss. “The crops were completely covered and had already been underwater earlier that week. The disease was already setting in,” he said.

One week on, Hawaii is only just beginning to grapple with the aftermath of both storms, which saw as much as 50in of rain and caused some of the state’s worst flooding since 2004. The damage is immense – with officials estimating costs at $1bn, and farmers have been hit hard, particularly on Oahu.

More than 300 farms have reported about $17.5m in damage as of this week, said Brian Miyamoto, the executive director of the Hawai‘i Farm Bureau. “This is so widespread that the need is astronomical,” he said.And with significant debris, damaged roads, and thick mud indoors and outside, cleanup will take time.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/29/hawaii-farm-recovery-after-storm-flood

[NJCher]

1. Put another way

That is a little over 4 feet of water.

Think about that. How often do you hear of any place getting 4 feet of water?