This was the heaviest rain I can remember. Or to put it another way, I can't ever remember this kind of rain. We were told to expect heavy precipitation, with a hurricane on its way. And since this is Hawaii it rains a lot anyway, almost every day.
But when we went to sleep, we had no idea what would hit within a couple hours. First off, our phones started to ring, with recording warnings of severe weather to hit soon. The house phone (a land line) and then Beka's cell phone and then Fiona's phone. We had already been sleeping for a couple hours. Apparently Hawaii has a pretty well developed system for spreading the word.
Less than five minutes later the storm hit hard.
If we had any chance of dropping back to sleep, it quickly vanished. The rain was beating hard on the tin roof of the house where we're staying. The majority of homes in Hawaii have metal roofs. Have you ever heard rain beating on a metal roof? It's loud! It grew from a dull roar to an incredibly deafening explosion of sound. It didn't waver or diminish, in fact it grew even more.
And then the lightning began, followed by booming thunder. The house shook. And the winds came, intermittent blasts of cool air, which ironically felt pretty good in relation to the tropical heat here in Hawaii. It was wild. It was so intense that Fiona and I just lay in bed looking out the window at the amazing display of weather. There is a window at the head of our bed, and we lay on our stomachs, gazing out, fascinated by the spectacular exhibition, regularly blinded by flashes of lightning.
The lightning was closer and closer, and at one point the flash was so intense we could feel the heat. This lighting display lasted for a long time, well over an hour. The noise was overwhelming. We thought the house was going to wash away. I'm still amazed the power didn't go out.
As an example, in Oregon and the Northwest, we're used to rain falling out of the sky being pulled down from the clouds by gravity. Not this stuff. It was like water was being shot out of a cannon. I pictured a thousand strong fire hoses blasting water on our town and the island. I didn't realize rain could "fall" this hard. It was an awesome moment in time. Only the moment lasted for a couple hours. We couldn't sleep. I don't see how anyone could.
Eventually, the rain subsided and the thunder and lightning went away. I'll never forget this storm. The wind kept blowing, but the storm was spent. I kept wondering how much rain had actually fallen. We finally drifted back to sleep. When I checked the weather stats later, a place near us recorded 7.67 inches of rain overnight!
The next morning, it was surprisingly mellow. We sipped our coffee and told stories about the night and said it would be something we would tell our grandchildren (only they were staying in the same house and slept through the whole thing!).
I went for a jog in the morning and there wasn't much evidence of the massive storm and drenching that took place the night before.
I figured there would be flooding and houses washed off their foundation, and cars washed away. We were emotionally impacted by the event, but it seemed like ... no one else was. Did Hawaiians just take this kind of thing in stride?
It turns out most of them did take it in stride. We went out for an early lunch and mentioned the night before and some of the locals said, "yeah, it was a bit wet last night ..."
A bit wet? You call this "a bit?" Are you kidding me? During the night I contemplated what our plans were to evacuate and maybe seek higher ground ... and they were like "yeah, I had to make sure my car windows were rolled up ..."
Our friends from Hawaii commented "did we forget to mention this part about living in paradise?" However, some other friends (also living in Hawaii) also admitted that this was the worst weather of the year, and ... weren't we lucky to be here to witness it!
Anyway, Hawaii is full of surprises. We lived to tell about it.
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