As people in Hawaii work to remove massive amounts of debris and fix damaged infrastructure in the wake of Lala, forecasters on Wednesday warned of the likelihood for another tropical cyclone forming southeast of the islands.
The death toll from the storm rose to two with the discovery of a man’s body near a highway.
The remains of the man in his 60s were located by residents in a pasture on Tuesday in the largest and southernmost district on the Big Island, a day after police were asked to conduct a welfare check, police Lt. David Po’ohina said in a news release.
Po’ohina said the death appears to be storm-related. Last weekend, Lala raked past the Big Island as a hurricane and then skirted neighboring islands as a tropical storm, pounding the volcanic archipelago with high winds and heavy rains before moving to the west. Lala also was blamed for the death of a 93-year-old woman whose body was found Monday after she was reported missing in Naalehu on the Big Island’s southern tip.
Now well west of Hawaii's main islands, Lala has reached major Category 3 strength with top sustained winds of 125 mph (205 kph) on Wednesday. But Hawaiians were put on notice for another storm system, located far to the east-southeast.
The National Hurricane Center said conditions appeared conducive for a tropical depression to form within days.
It's too early to tell the exact location or potential wind, rain and storm surge impacts. However, “interests in the Hawaiian Islands should closely monitor the progress of this system,” the hurricane center said, adding it could be a hurricane when it moves near or over the islands by the weekend.
Work continued Wednesday to clear away tons of mud and debris left behind by a torrent of water that inundated buildings, some of whose roofs were sheared off by the winds. Dozens of homes were washed from foundations, bridges were damaged and a collapsed section of a two-lane road had cut off access to the community of Pahala.
The heaviest recorded rainfall, 43.54 inches (1.1 meters), occurred in Laupahoehoe on the northeast coast of the Big Island, the National Weather Service said.
About 19,000 customers remained without power on Wednesday in Hawaii, down from nearly 104,000 on Monday afternoon, the Hawaiian Electric utility said. It said nearly all customers should have power restored by Friday.
On Wednesday, Lala was moving to the northwest across the Pacific Ocean at 9 mph (15 kph) and bearing down on a remote area that included the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge at the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The population in one of the most remote places on Earth consists entirely of a few dozen U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff, volunteers and contractors. Forecasters warned that hurricane conditions were expected in portions of the region by Thursday.
The hurricane center called it the first major hurricane of 2026 in the Central Pacific.
