NAALEHU — As Hurricane Lala battered the Ka‘u district on Big Island, lifelong Naalehu resident Ja’MeLe Oyama, 39, watched the floodwaters rise around her pickup truck as she tried to get her two sons to safety.

Read more BIIF football returns after 1-week hiatus

Her oldest boy had just celebrated his 15th birthday that day and her youngest is 9. Together they climbed onto the hood of the Ford F-150, but their situation became increasingly desperate as the truck was inundated, leaving them with no apparent escape.

Oyama then made a split-­second decision to jump into the rushing water with her sons in an attempt to make their way to safety.

“We walked, swam, whatever you like call it — at least we made it out alive,” she said.

The Ka‘u district was hardest hit when Lala moved slowly past South Point on Aug. 15 as a Category 1 hurricane, dumping over 30 inches of rain in some areas before passing south of the other islands as a powerful tropical storm.

The hurricane was blamed for two deaths and damaged hundreds of homes and several bridges while also knocking out power to as many as 200,000 Hawaiian Electric Co. customers on Oahu and Hawaii Island. As of Saturday, most service had been restored but over 11,000 customers on Hawaii Island still had no power.

Gov. Josh Green on Saturday formally requested the White House issue a presidential emergency declaration for the state. The request, which covers the counties of Hawaii, Maui and Honolulu, asks for immediate federal assistance to protect public health and safety, maintain essential services and support communities recovering from Lala as Tropical Storm Moke was approaching, according to the Governor’s Office.

For Oyama and many others in her situation, filing insurance claims and seeking disaster relief assistance can wait. Her immediate priorities are more basic: salvaging family memorabilia, finding food, water and shelter, and making sure her family is safe and can move beyond the traumatic events of the past week.

After fleeing their home, Oyama and her sons found shelter at Honua’s Coffee House, where they huddled with the cafe owners and other community members to wait out the hurricane.

Owner Kaala Honua, 27, watched the trio approach through chest-deep floodwaters, with Oyama carrying one son on her shoulders and the other walking alongside her.

“They were like, ‘We’re just trying to get to safety,’” Honua recalled. “And it was like, there’s no safety. Come inside.”

The Oyamas arrived with almost nothing. They had no change of clothes, food or other belongings and had left behind important documents as they fled the rising water. Honua gave them what he could — clothes and a place to sit — as there was little else anyone could do.

The coffee house, which opened in September 2020 and also provides a home for Honua, his wife and their two young children, ages 9 months and 3, had already lost power by about 10 a.m. Saturday. Losing electricity during storms was not unusual, but what followed was unlike anything they had experienced before.

The area had flooded during the Kona-low storms in March, but the water had never reached the level it did during Hurricane Lala. This time, “gigantic” boulders came rushing through the storm drain and became lodged behind the gas station, causing water to rapidly back up and spill into the surrounding neighborhood.

It wasn’t long before 3-1/2 feet of water surrounded the cafe. With the town flooded and roads impassable, Honua and his family had nowhere else to go.

The stormclaimed the life of a man Honua had come to know well over the years.

Community members identified him as John Hylas, a Naalehu resident in his 60s whose body was found in a pasture off Mamalahoa Highway after the flooding subsided. Friends knew him as “Marathon John” because of his habit of speed-walking along the sidewalks.

Hylas had been a regular at Honua’s Coffee House since it opened. Honua considered him the town’s unofficial weatherman because he closely followed storms and always seemed to know when rain was coming.

“He was the weatherman and he was the storm aficionado,” Honua said. “He knew everything there was to know.”

Hylas had even warned Honua about Lala before the storm was upgraded to a hurricane. But no one in the community expected the amount of flooding that ultimately ravaged Naalehu.

“This is the worst,” Honua said. “The aftereffects for us in Ka‘u, absolutely the worst.”

By the next morning, residents had begun digging themselves out of the mud and debris. According to Honua, around 6:30 a.m. people arrived with excavators and backhoes without being asked to begin clearing the roads.

Oyama said the morning brought the reality of what she had lost.

“I went outside, looked at the mess, and I don’t know, that was all mine and everything is destroyed,” she said, wiping tears with her muddy shirt as she cleaned out her home, searching through the wreckage for anything that could be salvaged.

The old plantation home had been passed down to Oyama from her parents, who had inherited it from their parents. Oyama, who lost her husband six years ago, grew up in the house and raised her two sons there.

Read more Before aid arrives, Hawaii’s community networks step up

Now the home sits roughly 50 feet from where it originally stood, pushed from its foundation by the floodwaters. Oyama’s truck was almost completely buried beneath mud and sediment that has hardened under the sun.

“I cannot live back here, that’s for sure,” she said. “If my house was still standing like some others though, I would never move.”

Among those caught in the flooding was Annie Rudenberg, 28, who moved to Naalehu from Canada more than six years ago and runs a small baking and vegetable-growing business, selling her goods at the ‘O Ka‘u Kakou Farmers and Artisans Market.

Earlier the evening of Aug. 15, with the power out, Rudenberg used propane and headlamps to make pizzas on her front porch, knowing her neighbors still needed to eat. After everyone went home, she settled on her couch with a cold soda, thinking she was safe.

“I was just chilling,” she recalled.

About 8:25 p.m., she heard a strange noise and smelled sewage.

“I had my headlamp on. I opened the front door and the water just rushed in,” Rudenberg said. “I jumped onto my bed.”

Rudenberg sent a video of the flooding to her church and to a friend in California who is an EMT. Her pastor urged her to call 911, but she said emergency responders told her they could not reach her. Her friend called and stayed on the phone with her, talking her through what to do if she needed to escape.

The water continued rising inside her small studio, eventually lifting her mattress off its box spring. At its highest point, the water brought her less than an arm’s length of the ceiling fan.

“All the cockroaches in Naalehu were on the bed with me, crawling all over me too,” she said. “It was so gross. I could hear these huge booms. It sounded like houses hitting each other, trees hitting things, cars hitting things, I don’t know. I had no idea what was happening.”

She created a flotation device out of a leash and 5-gallon bucket in case she had to brave the floodwaters. After what felt like the longest two hours, the water began to recede.

Without power, water, cell phone service and internet, many residents have had to rely on word of mouth from people coming into the community with access to phones, the internet and other basic services to learn what is happening beyond their area.

“We’re just trying to survive now,” Oyama said. “But the community has been awesome. Very strong, very awesome. Once we got hit, everybody just came together.”

Michael Alcoran of Pahala was among the many residents and community members who came to Naalehu to help those affected by Hurricane Lala.

In a parking lot across from the Ace Hardware store, makeshift distribution stations offered various necessities. Water tanks, large chests of ice and other supplies were being handed out alongside a lemonade stand.

“This is my hometown,” Alcoran said. “For the most part, a lot of people are heartbroken, but they’re so thankful and their spirits are high.”

Heidi Flores, who lives in South Point, said her home sustained minor water and wind damage. Still, seeing the devastation in Naalehu prompted her to volunteer.

“We were humbled when we came down to Naalehu,” Flores said. “So I just wanted to volunteer and help.”

Volunteers also came from as far away as Waimea to bring donations and distribute supplies.

At the OKK Farmers Market, volunteers fed over 800 people and distributed food, ice and produce. Some also went door to door to help residents with disabilities who could not make it to the distribution sites themselves.

For Honua, the response reflected the same community that has supported his coffee shop since it opened nearly six years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Residents dropped off water so the coffee shop could distribute it to people coming into the area for help. Others brought equipment and helped clear debris from the business and surrounding homes.

Honua said the business’s future remains uncertain after the flooding, but the community’s support has given him hope.

“We love these people,” he said. “We grew up here in this town. … The only reason that we’re here is because of them. And the reason that we’re still here right now is because we want to be here so that we can give back to them.”

Read more Another strong outing by Blake Snell sends Dodgers to sweep of Pirates