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Muddy floodwaters from terrible rains inundated streets, swallowed vehicles and prompted evacuation orders for thousands of residents successful towns northbound of Honolulu connected Friday arsenic officials warned of the imaginable nonaccomplishment of a 120-year-old dam.
Honolulu officials told immoderate 4,000 residents successful an exigency connection to permission the country downstream of the Wahiawa dam due to the fact that it's failing oregon expected to neglect soon. The informing told residents to carpool due to the fact that of dense traffic.
Emergency sirens blared on Oahu's famed North Shore, wherever rising waters besides damaged homes. Honolulu officials issued a "LEAVE NOW" evacuation bid astatine 5:35 a.m. Friday for Waialua and Haleiwa: "Extremely unsafe flooding and Wahiawa Dam is high."
Officials are informing of life-threatening flood conditions. Dam levels person been precocious since a tempest past week dumped dense rainfall crossed the state, resulting successful catastrophic flooding that washed distant roads and homes. After the worst of it, a akin but weaker tempest was forecast to bring much rainfall done this weekend.
Floodwaters successful Waialua, Hawaii, connected Friday morning, March 20, 2026.
Craig Fujii / AP
The National Weather Service successful Honolulu issued a flood ticker done Sunday day for each islands successful Hawaii.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said successful a societal media station that the Hawaii National Guard has been activated to respond to the flooding.
"The tempest of people is precise terrible close now, peculiarly connected the bluish portion of Oahu," helium said, describing chest-high flood waters. "It's going to beryllium a precise touch-and-go day."
Molly Pierce, spokesperson for the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management, said the evacuation bid covers much than 4,000 people, though the fig could beryllium higher.
Green said respective pet-friendly shelters are open, including ones astatine Waialua High and Intermediate, Wahiawā District Park, Nānākuli High and Intermediate, and Kahuku Elementary.
Most of the authorities was nether a flood watch, with northern Oahu under a flash flood warning, according to the National Weather Service, which reported "widespread life-threatening flash flooding" peculiarly successful Haleiwa and Waialua.
As she prepared to evacuate to a friend's location connected higher ground, Waialua nonmigratory Kathleen Pahinui told The Associated Press successful a telephone interrogation that the aging dam is simply a interest each clip it rains.
"Just commune for us," she said. "We recognize there's much rainfall coming."
Molly Pierce, spokesperson for the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management, said the evacuation bid covers much than 4,000 people, though the fig could beryllium higher.
Officials issued a informing for the dam during dense rainfall past week, but the h2o level receded arsenic the rainfall subsided.
"The h2o is actively moving implicit the spillway close now," she said.
This outer representation provided by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows unreality screen implicit Hawaii connected Friday, March 20, 2026 astatine 2 p.m. EDT.
NOAA via AP
The authorities regulates 132 dams crossed Hawaii, astir of them built arsenic portion of irrigation systems for the sweetener cane industry, according to a 2019 infrastructure study by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Severe flooding in 2021 whitethorn person caused a breach of Kaupakalua Dam successful the Maui assemblage of Haiku. Several years earlier, successful 2018, flooding decimated Hawaii's taro crop. In 2006, 7 radical were killed erstwhile the Ka Loko dam connected the land of Kauai collapsed and h2o rushed downhill.
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