Hurricane Lala Weakens to Tropical Storm, Causes Flooding in Hawaii

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Hurricane Lala Weakens to Tropical Storm, Causes Flooding in Hawaii
Photo: PBS NewsHour
politics· A press review of 9 outlets
  1. Hurricane Lala weakened to a tropical storm Sunday after skirting Hawaii without making landfall, but it wasn't done punishing the Big Island with hurricane-force gusts. Total rainfall of nearly three feet (one meter) was expected on the higher windward slopes, turning rivers into raging torrents and threatening mudslides.

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    ABC News

    The storm is bringing heavy rain and damaging wind to the Big Island. Lala has weakened to a tropical storm, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), after it earlier had strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane, resulting in flooding across the Hawaiian Islands and causing at least one death.

    The Guardian US

    Lala was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it grazed the islands, but it brought heavy rains and winds strong enough to sweep about 100 homes off their foundations on the Big Island.

    New York Post

    Hurricane Lala has swept through Hawaii, Honolulu and Maui counties, causing massive amounts of damage and leaving thousands without power.

    PBS NewsHour

    Cleanup begins in Hawaii after intense rain and flooding from Hurricane Lala Lala weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm Sunday after lashing the state without making landfall.

    BBC News

    Published Hawaii is facing flash floods that may have swept some homes away after category one Hurricane Lala skirted Big Island, as it continues to grapple with strong winds and torrential rain.

  2. More than 129,700 utility customers remain without power across Hawaii on Sunday morning, with the majority in Hawaii County, according to PowerOutage.us.

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    NPR News

    More than 130,000 households were without power Sunday morning across Hawaii's three largest islands, according to the utility tracker poweroutage.us. At least three hospitals were operating on generator power, Gov. Josh Green said.

    Washington Times

    More than 106,000 utility customers statewide remained without power as of Monday morning, down from a peak of around 300,000, according to the online utility tracker PowerOutage.us.

    New York Post

    Over 113,000 customers are still out of power according to Poweroutage.com. Restoration may takes days as transmission lines down, according to Kimo Alameda, Mayor of Hawaii County. At least one person was killed in a storm-related car crash.

  3. At least one person died in a car accident in the South Point area of the Big Island, while 19 roofs were lost in the "enormous storm," the governor said Saturday evening. "There have been a lot of roads impacted, our crews have already been out to more than 30 sites."

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    BBC News

    Hawaii Governor Josh Green said on Saturday that one person had died in a weather-related car accident on Big Island, where many roads have been impacted.

    ABC News

    On Saturday, one person was killed in a storm-related car crash as Lala began to intensify and make its closest approach to the Big Island, officials said.

  4. Mayor Kimo Alameda said the county's civil defense agency had initiated a search and rescue operation to find people whose homes may have been swept away in the floods.

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    NPR News

    A search-and-rescue mission including Civil Defense, the National Guard and Coast Guard was launched after flash floods apparently swept several occupied homes off their foundations in the coastal communities of Na'alehu and Wai'ohinu, near the island's southern tip, Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda said early Sunday.

  5. Tropical storm warnings are in effect for all eight of Hawaii's major islands: Big Island, Maui, Molokai, Kahoolawe, Oahu, Lanai, Kauai and Niihau. Big Island was previously under a hurricane warning.

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    ABC News

    A hurricane warning for the Big Island in Hawaii County was replaced on Sunday with a tropical storm warning, with a tropical storm warning remaining for all Hawaiian Islands.

  6. The storm continued to churn near Hawaii on Sunday, with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, bringing with it heavy flooding rain and damaging wind as it bore down on the state's Big Island.

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    BBC News

    The National Hurricane Center said: "Damaging winds and heavy rain will persist across the Big Island throughout tonight and spread westwards across the smaller islands on Sunday."

  7. Hawaii was last hit by a “major” hurricane – meaning category 3, 4, or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale – in 1992, when Hurricane Iniki caused at least six deaths and billions of dollars in damage.

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    BBC News

    Iniki, a powerful category four storm, was the last hurricane to hit Hawaii back in 1992.

  8. Flooding risk remains as deadly storms move from the Midwest to the mid-Atlantic In Indiana, days of storms have left at least seven people dead.

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    Washington Times

    In Indiana, where days of storms and flooding left at least seven people dead, floodwaters receded in Indianapolis’ White River and rains eased in other parts of the state Sunday. But a flood warning remained in effect Monday morning for part of Randolph County in east central Indiana, where thunderstorms had dropped between 1 and 2 inches of rain by 8 a.m.

    NPR News

    At least six people across multiple counties in Indiana have died related to historic flooding. While some of the worst hit areas are beginning to recover, severe weather is expected to impact the region on Sunday.

  9. The National Weather Service said repeated rounds of heavy rain and thunderstorms would continue for one more day before a cold front sweeps the weather pattern off the East Coast on Tuesday. In the meantime, much of West Virginia, southeast Ohio and northeast Kentucky were under a flood watch through Monday evening, with high water lingering from previous storms increasing the possibility of flash flooding.

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    NPR News

    Thunderstorms are expected to bring heavy rainfall and possible flooding to West Virginia on Sunday, the National Weather Service also said. NPR's Laura Sullivan contributed to this report.

From the margins

9 details only one outlet reported

Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.

  1. 01 New York Post

    In an X post from AccuWeather, the weather forecasting company set the internet ablaze with before and after of the stunning waterfall at Rainbow Falls after Hawaii’s Hurricane Lala. The social media post showed a split screen photo with the top half featuring the beautiful waterfall before the storm.

  2. 02 BBC News

    Hawaii County said that as of 01:00 local time (12:00 GMT) on Sunday, two areas on Big Island had been hit by flash flooding, adding "several occupied homes may have been swept off their foundations".

  3. 03 The Guardian US

    Josh Green, Hawaii’s governor, said officials are still investigating whether there had been any storm-related deaths.

  4. 04 NBC News

    AG Todd Blanche Declines to Pledge DOJ Independence 01:07 Trump Says Ballroom is Needed, Calling it a 'Security Structure’ 02:23 Iran Rebuffs Trump's US Territory Claim on Strait of Hormuz 02:06 Now Playing Rare Hurricane in Hawaii Destroys Homes, Knocks Out Power 03:31 UP NEXT Flooding Ravages Indiana, Triggering Evacuations and Rescues 01:56 Hayden Panettiere, 'Heroes' and 'Nashville' Actor, Dies at 36 02:33 Labor Day Getaway Ideas: Crystal Coast, San Francisco, More 04:03 Endurance Car Racer Samantha Tan Shares Trailblazing Journey 03:07 What Parents Should Know About Trump’s Change to Vaccinations 04:24 Cardinals Rookie Joshua Báez Makes Historic 3-Home Run Debut 00:43 VSU Shooting Suspect Arrested After Wounding 5 People 00:25 Ukraine Launches One of its Largest Aerial Attacks on Russia 00:23 Why Democrats Changed Their 2028 Presidential Primary Strategy 02:17 Democrats Lay out New Presidential Primary Calendar for 2028 01:34 Indiana Residents Evacuate as Historic Floods Turn Deadly 02:12 Hurricane Lala Pounds Hawaii's Big Island With Drenching Rains 02:11 Meet the Elementary School Teacher Behind the Rolling Classroom 06:03 How This Woman Went From Footlocker Exec to Trailblazing Pilot 04:50 Why Shoppers Are Ditching Cooking for the Prepared Food Aisle 03:49 Surrogate Gives Birth Amid Legal Dispute With Biological Parents 02:10

  5. 05 ABC News

    As of Sunday morning, the Big Island had received 1 to 2 feet of rain since Friday. The community of Laupahoehoe on the Hamakua Coast of the Big Island has gotten more than 33 inches of rain since Friday.

  6. 06 NPR News

    Thunderstorms are expected to move across central Indiana late Sunday evening and could cause additional flooding in areas already impacted by the storms, according to the National Weather Service.

  7. 07 New York Times

    What We Know About Damages From Hurricane Lala in Hawaii The storm narrowly missed land, but its outer bands left the Big Island with power outages, road closures and flooded homes.

  8. 08 Washington Times

    Heavy rains hammered Indiana over the past week, causing rivers to crest and setting records as roads and bridges were seriously damaged or washed out entirely by the rushing waters.

  9. 09 PBS NewsHour

    News Wrap: 7 dead after storms and catastrophic floods in Midwest In our news wrap Monday, a week of heavy storms and catastrophic floods in the Midwest has killed at least seven people, Hurricane Lala left a trail of destruction across the Big Island of Hawaii and the other Hawaiian islands and U.S. envoy and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner left Israel without a breakthrough on the president's stalled Gaza peace proposal.

Assembled from 9 corroborated claims drawn from 9 independent outlets. Every passage above is taken verbatim — Dorothy doesn't paraphrase or summarize.

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