Two days after Hurricane Lala unleashed strong winds and heavy rain across Hawaii Island, residents have begun taking stock of the damage and preparing for ongoing impacts.

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With thousands of homes and businesses still without power, officials warn it could be weeks until it is restored in some of the hardest hit rural areas, leaving many without ways to store or cook food.

A line to pick up boxes of free food from local nonprofit The Food Basket stretched around the block Monday morning in Hilo.

Director of Communications Leelan Park said that the organization also had a distribution center in Kona and was working with the Hawaii National Guard to send nonperishible, ready-to-eat food supplies to Ka‘u, the southernmost part of the island, which sustained heavy storm damage. Broken bridges and flooded roads have left the towns of Pahala and Na‘alehu largely cut off from the rest of the county.

“A lot of the focus and the energy has been going over to Na‘alehu … but we do realize that there are other communities out there that are still suffering,” he said. “So, we want to make ourselves available for those communities as well, and we’re doing all we can to make sure that we have resources to share with them.”

He said the distribution centers would likely be open in the afternoon for the rest of the week, but that the schedule was subject to change based on need.

Individual community members have also been coming together to collect and distribute supplies. At Nani Mau Gardens, owner Cindy Cui and Kristen “KT” Sunshine organized a donation and pick-up center for nonperishible foods and other goods.

Hawaiian Paradise Park resident Jesse Nunez Sr. stopped by with his family to stock up on Monday morning. He said his home, where he lives with his wife and their 10 children, had been without power since Saturday.

Having grown up on the island, he said he has lived through many storms — including Hurricane Iniki, which hit Kauai in 1992 — but that the impact of Lala has been especially devastating.

“With this one, I didn’t think it was that damaging. I mean, it had strong wind, the rain… then the aftermath of it all shocked me,” he said. “My wife was showing me what happened to Ka‘u — that shattered me.”

He said he was confident that communities will bounce back, but that it is likely to be a long and challenging road ahead.

“To rebuild, it takes time,” he said. “Especially when you ain’t got the money to replace anything, that’s the hard part … that’s when these guys all come together and help the best you can.”

In Pahoa, Puna residents embodied that spirit as many businesses organized to distribute free food to the community. With large swaths of the region still without electricity, grocery stores and restaurants offered up produce and other perishable goods to avoid it going to waste.

Family-owned Ning’s Thai Cuisine took it a step further and was serving up free, hot meals throughout the day Monday. While power was out at the restaurant, Lei Kaikea Suwannasarn said they were using a small generator and propane to cook up steaming batches of pad thai and fried rice.

“We came out, and we were like, hey, you know, we gotta do something about this perishable stuff,” he said. “Just looking at all the news, it’s just so heartbreaking to see what everyone is going through, so at least this is some way we could help.”

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Kimberley Schori and Jim Remy, who live in nearby Leilani Estates, said they have been regulars at the restaurant for years and stopped by for some food as they were driving around the area to survey the storm damage.

While they said there was no serious damage to their property, they had been without electricity since 10 a.m. Saturday morning and were pounded with heavy rain and wind. Remy described the storm as “like being in a car wash.”

They said that they appreciated the efforts from the county to communicate about the situation and address the storm’s impacts.

“They’re doing the best they can,” Remy said. “Nobody could predict what a hurricane is going to do and the damage that it’s going to inflict. The water and the wind, I mean, you can’t predict that. They did give everybody warnings.”

Both said that while they would like to see power restored and repairs made in Puna as soon as possible, they understand the need to prioritize the hardest-hit regions.

“I just pray for the poor people in Pahala, because they’ve got to get whole new roads built, and to do all that infrastructure, build roads, is a lot,” Remy said.

While county and state crews have been at work to clear debris in Ka‘u, residents in more remote parts of the region are prepared for the wait for help to last several days.

The Tribune-Herald spoke with Kristina Reynolds via phone who said she and her neighbors living in the hills above the lower end of the Ninole Loop Road in Pahala were effectively stranded after the road connecting them to town was flooded and washed away during the hurricane.

She said they were working to clear the road, which had only recently been repaired following damage due to the Kona low storms in March.

“It’s rough, it’s really rough,” she said. “We’re gonna do what we can so that our neighbor’s big four-wheel truck can make it out and see what we can do from there.”

Until then, she said, they will be relying on generators for power, Starlink for internet and stockpiled water and groceries for sustenance — along with meat from one neighbor who regularly hunts pigs.

“We’ve got each other’s backs really good … ,” she said. “It’s just been really overwhelming every single time something like this happens, how quick the community can react to help each other out — that’s always really nice to see happen.

However, she said they would appreciate outside help and government support as soon as possible.

“I feel like the response time has been pretty good,” she said. “It would be nice to see that they could act a little bit quicker than they did on some of the previous storms.”

Read more ‘All of this devastation’: Lala causes damage and disruption across the island — but especially in Ka‘u

Email Grace Inez Adams at [email protected].