Hawaii Dodges a Bullet

Hurricane Ana arrived with almost no warning on Hawaii’s doorstep as an unwanted guest, and is now moving out the backdoor causing no more damage than a serious thunderstorm. Luckily Ana continued to alter its trajectory over the course of the past few days moving further to the south than originally predicted and essentially followed a course parallel to the island chain but just far enough away to keep its hurricane force winds away from the islands.

The Big Island which it appeared to originally be targeting fared well with the major impact being in the Hilo area appearing in the form of 10″-12″ of rainfall. Hilo is well used to dealing with excessive rainfall and consequently there was very little in the way of a negative impact. Maui County and Oahu had almost no damage either other than a fair bit of rain and high overcast skies. A tremendous light show lit up the heavens during the early morning hours and lightning and thunder persisted throughout. Although it was thoroughly prepared for the worst, the Maui Electric Company made it through the storms entirety with very little in the way of power outages or collateral problems.

As it turned out Kauai and Niihau were the closest to the pathway of the storm with Niihau being the closest but even this tiny island made it through with no signs of damage.
Hurricane Ana started out as a tropical depression and worked its way up to a category one Hurricane, reverted back to a tropical depression and is now as it leaves the vicinity of the state preparing itself for a northward turn and upgrading to a Hurricane once again.

All in all, Hawaii did very well in dodging the bullet of Hurricane Ana and it appears that the largest imposition for the residents here will be to find storage for all the extra canned goods they stocked up on incase a larger impact had occurred.