By Ken Sakamoto, Star-Bulletin
Eddy Moetului, an employee at Richard Tajiri's Christmas
tree lot at 1140 Ala Moana, trims a tree for a customer today.
He's wearing a rain hat/umbrella to keep dry in the heavy
downpour. Tajiri says the "last two days kind of hurt buying,
but overall sales have been steady." He has 600-700 trees left
from this last shipment for the season.

Heavy rains
turn isles into
wetter wonderland

Widespread power failures,
congested traffic and a 14-year-old
boy's close call result from downpours

By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

Thousands of city workers and their families planned to be celebrating at the Mayor's Employees Christmas Party at the Honolulu Zoo today.

That is, until the rains struck yesterday.

"The weather's just too iffy at this point," Carol Costa, spokeswoman for Mayor Jeremy Harris, said. "We're just going to move it one week and hope that we have the best weather that we could possibly have."

Hope is good, but in a month that has seen high winds blowing off roofs and heavy rains leading to flood evacuations, an indoor venue might begin to look like an attractive alternative.

The gray skies and wet conditions continued yesterday, dumping more than two inches of rain in many areas of Oahu, congesting traffic and keeping utility crews busy fixing electrical failures.

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
People wait in pouring rain for a bus yesterday at a stop
on Farrington Highway next to the Pacific Nissan
dealer in Waipahu.

The weather also led to a close call for a 14-year-old boy when a midafternoon flash flood swept him perhaps a quarter-mile down a Waipahu drainage canal.

According to fire officials, the boy and some companions apparently entered the Kiwini Drainage Canal near Waipahu Street when the water level was low.

But then the water rose rapidly and carried him down the concrete ditch, close to the intersection of Leoleo and Leokane streets.

"I think he ended up grabbing onto a pipe that was kind of sticking out of the water near where we found him," said Waipahu Fire Capt. Keith Nakanelua. "He was pulled out of the water by a passer-by who happened to be working there."

The fire station received the call at about 2:05 p.m. Nakanelua said the youth sustained some bruises and cuts and perhaps a sprained foot. He was taken by ambulance to St. Francis Hospital-West where he was treated and released at about 6 p.m.

Nakanelua noted that if the boy had been been carried less than another block, the cascading waters would have swept him into Pearl Harbor's West Loch.

"It's kind of amazing" the boy survived, the fire captain said.

By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Ruby Clemente waits for a ride in front of the
state Capitol with other bus riders.

Overnight rainfall on Oahu during a 12-hour period from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. was heaviest on the North Shore.

Police report that runoffs from the mountain had created "mid-tire level" ponding by early morning on Kamehameha Highway near Sunset Beach Elementary School. No road closures were reported.

Brad Fujii, a National Weather Service meteorologist, expected the wet weather to linger from Waimea Bay to Haleiwa and through Wahiawa until tomorrow.

"It'll be hit and miss as far as the heavy rains, but light rain is expected to continue through today before tapering off tomorrow," Fujii said.

Overnight monitoring showed 3.6 inches of rainfall in Punaluu, 2.48 inches in Pacific Palisades, 2.32 inches in Nuuanu and 2.55 inches of rain at the Wilson Tunnel.

A flash flood warning was extended this morning for Oahu, Kauai and the Big Island.

There was heavy overnight rainfall on the Big Island. Hilo got 7-8 inches, and Piihonua in South Hilo, 5.81 inches. However, all roads and streets were open except for flooding on Kamehameha Avenue fronting soccer fields, said Big Island Civil Defense Administrator Harry Kim.

Oahu's rain brought brief flooding shortly after 3 p.m. at Metcalf and Dole streets, Manoa's Ala Ula Way and Oahu Avenue, Young and Piikoi streets, and Mapunapuna and Mokumoa streets, according to police.

A 6:13 a.m. power failure affected 2,100 Waianae Coast customers in the vicinity of Hakimo Road and Lualualei Naval Road yesterday when a line went down. Most power was restored by 6:30 a.m., but a few customers went without electricity until about 3 p.m., said Hawaiian Electric Co. spokesman Fred Kobashikawa.

Another failure at 2:50 p.m. at Windward Mall and surrounding Kaneohe areas affected some 1,600 residential and commercial customers. All power was restored by 3:57 p.m. yesterday.

An 8:15 p.m. failure occurred in Temple Valley near Kahaluu. The shopping center and a number of nearby streets were affected, leaving about 2,200 residential and small-business customers without electricity. Power was restored by 9 p.m., Kobashikawa said.

Meanwhile, high surf advisories went into effect for Oahu's north and west shores, with waves expected to peak at 15 to 20 feet today.