NATION/WORLD
Saturday, August 25, 2018
Once-powerful Hawaii hurricane
downgraded to tropical storm
HONOLULU (AP) — A
powerful hurricane that threat-
ened Hawaii for a week rap-
idly disintegrated to become
a tropical storm south of
Honolulu. But meteorologists
warned heavy rains could still
wallop the islands with flash
flooding and punishing winds.
Lane dumped nearly 3
feet of rain on parts of the Big
Island of Hawaii over the past
two days, forcing residents to
flee their homes in waist-high
water and officials to clear a
series of landslides.
Honolulu Mayor Kirk
Caldwell said people need to
be vigilant and not let their
guard down. But he was happy
to hear the storm deteriorated.
“The good news is Lane
got weak and fell apart. We
dodged a bullet,” he said at a
news conference on Friday.
Lane roared toward the
island chain early this week as
the most powerful type of hur-
ricane measured: a Category
5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hur-
ricane Wind Scale. That meant
it was likely to cause cata-
strophic damage with winds
157 mph (252 kph) or above.
But upper-level winds
known as shear swiftly tore
the storm apart. By late Friday,
the National Weather Service
said Lane had maximum sus-
tained winds of 70 mph (110
mph) as it slowly twisted west
about 120 miles (240 km)
south of Honolulu.
The outer bands of the
hurricane dumped as much
as 3 feet (1 meter) of rain in
48 hours on the mostly rural
Big Island. The main town of
Hilo, population 43,000, was
flooded Friday with waist-
high water as landslides shut
down roads.
Margaret Collins, 69, woke
up Thursday night to sounds
in her Hilo backyard.
“So I got up out of bed and
looked out my bedroom win-
dow and saw water 3 feet high
gushing past my window,” she
said. “And that’s when I real-
ized I was standing in water.”
Collins called a neighbor
for help, who crawled through
bushes to bring her out of the
house, half-carrying her as she
clutched a plastic bag with
medication.
The water knocked down
a cement wall and lifted her
truck out of the carport, send-
AP Photo/John Locher
Bodyboarders jump into the surf along Waikiki Beach ahead of Hurricane Lane, Fri-
day, Aug. 24, 2018, in Honolulu.
ing it toward her neighbor’s
house, she said.
“My house is completely
inundated with mud-water,”
said Collins, who was told the
damage wouldn’t be covered
by insurance. She hopes she
can get federal assistance.
Elsewhere on the Big
Island, the National Guard and
firefighters rescued six peo-
ple and a dog from a flooded
home, while five California
tourists were rescued from
another house.
A different type of evacu-
ation took place on Oahu, the
state’s most populated island.
Officials with the Depart-
ment of Land and Natural
Resources transferred about
2,000 rare Hawaiian snails
from a mountain marsh to
offices in downtown Hono-
lulu. A staffer will spend the
night and place ice around
their cages in case the air con-
ditioning goes out.
Some of the snails are the
last of their kind, including
one named George that’s the
sole remaining Achatinella
apexfulva in captivity. Staff
members are trying to keep
him safe in case he’s able to
reproduce.
As flooding hit the Big
Island, brush fires broke out in
areas of Maui and Oahu sus-
ceptible to flames.
Some residents in a shel-
ter on Maui had to flee when a
fire got too close, and another
fire forced people from their
homes. A woman got burns
on her hands and legs and
was flown to Honolulu, Maui
County spokesman Rod
Antone said. Her condition
wasn’t clear.
A man posted a video on
Instagram showing flames
several stories high starting
to envelop parked cars. Josh
Galinato said he was trying to
sleep when he smelled smoke
in his apartment in the tourist
town of Lahaina.
“I opened up my front door,
and I just saw the fire spread-
ing and coming downhill,”
Galinato said. He and neigh-
bors honked horns to alert oth-
ers to the danger.
Joseph Azam, who was
vacationing in Maui with fam-
ily and friends, hoped rain
from the hurricane arrived
before the flames did.
“Trying to figure which
comes first, the fire or the
rain,” said Azam, who’s from
Oakland, California, and is
staying at a hotel. “We’re
praying the rain arrives soon.”
Others prayed for the rain
to stay away.
In Waikiki, the man-made
Ala Wai Canal is likely to
flood if predicted rains arrive,
said Ray Alexander of the
U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers. The canal marks the
northern boundary of the
Waikiki tourist district. Wor-
ries that it could overflow in
heavy rains have prompted
efforts to reduce the risk.
Swimmers and surf-
ers ignored warnings from
authorities and plunged into
powerful waves at Oahu’s
famed Waikiki Beach, which
was closed.
Emergency officials said
repeatedly over loudspeakers:
“Please get out of the water!
It’s very dangerous!” Hono-
lulu mayor Caldwell pleaded
with tourists that they were
putting themselves in danger
as the storm churned closer.
Crystal Bowden, a tour-
ist from California, watched
powerful waves crash against
cliffs on Oahu’s southeast
coast.
“I came in to visit, got here
just in time for the hurricane,”
Bowden said. “We’re kind of
excited.”
Federal Emergency Man-
agement Agency officials
said about 2,000 people were
in shelters, mostly in Oahu.
Honolulu’s shelters would
stay open until midday Satur-
day, Caldwell said.
The central Pacific gets
fewer hurricanes than other
regions, with about only four
or five named storms a year.
Hawaii rarely gets hit.
East Oregonian
Page 9A
Trump delays Pompeo’s
visit to North Korea
By ZEKE MILLER AND
MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press
WA S H I N G T O N
(AP) — President Don-
ald Trump said Friday
he has directed Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo
to delay a planned trip
to North Korea, citing
insufficient progress on
denuclearization.
Trump put some blame
on Beijing, saying he does
not believe China is help-
ing “because of our much
tougher Trading stance.”
The surprise announce-
ment appeared to mark a
concession by the presi-
dent to domestic and inter-
national concerns that his
prior claims of world-al-
tering progress on the pen-
insula had been strikingly
premature.
“I have asked Secre-
tary of State Mike Pompeo
not to go to North Korea,
at this time, because I feel
we are not making suffi-
cient progress with respect
to the denuclearization of
the Korean Peninsula,”
Trump tweeted Friday,
barely two months after
his June meeting with the
North’s Kim Jong Un in
Singapore.
Trump’s comment fol-
lowed a report issued Mon-
day by the International
Atomic Energy Agency
outlining “grave concern”
about the North’s nuclear
program. It came a day
after Pompeo appointed
Stephen Biegun, a senior
executive with the Ford
Motor Co., to be his spe-
cial envoy for North Korea
and said he and Biegun
would visit next week.
The State Department
never confirmed details
of the trip, but it had been
expected that Pompeo
would be in Pyongyang for
at least several hours Mon-
day, according to several
diplomatic sources famil-
iar with the plan.
White House officials
declined to specify what
prompted Trump to call
off Pompeo’s trip or what
had changed since the
president’s rose-colored-
glasses assessments of the
nuclear situation just days
ago.
A senior White House
official said Trump made
the decision to cancel
the visit Friday morn-
ing during a meeting with
Pompeo, Biegun, chief
of staff John Kelly and
National Security Adviser
John Bolton, who joined
by phone. Intelligence and
defense officials were not
in the meeting, the offi-
cial said, seeming to indi-
cate that the breakdown
was diplomatic in nature.
The official spoke on the
condition of anonym-
ity to describe internal
deliberations.
The State Department
had no immediate com-
ment on the matter and
referred questions to the
White House.
Trump laid unspecified
blame on China.
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump
walk across the South Lawn of the White House in
Washington, Friday, Aug. 24, 2018, to board Marine
One helicopter for a short trip to Andrews Air Force
Base, Md., en route to Columbus, Ohio.
Congressman, wife plead
not guilty to illegal spending
By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO (AP) —
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter
was swarmed by demonstra-
tors yelling “shame on you!”
as he left a federal courthouse
Thursday in San Diego after
pleading not guilty to charges
of illegally using his cam-
paign account for personal
expenses.
The California Repub-
lican and his wife, Marga-
ret, entered their pleas in fed-
eral court, where prosecutors
said bond could be set low
because the couple is liv-
ing paycheck to paycheck.
The judge agreed to set it at
$15,000 for the congressman
and at $10,000 for his wife.
The court also required each
bond be secured by the signa-
ture of a related, financially
responsible adult.
After the arraignment,
demonstrators holding signs
that read “Duncan Hunter
Ethics and Integrity Mat-
ter” and “Crooked Duncan
Hunter” followed him as he
walked to a pickup truck. He
got in and removed a “Lock
me up!” sign shoved onto the
windshield as he was driven
away. His wife was not seen
leaving the courthouse after
the arraignment.
A 60-count indictment
unsealed Tuesday charges
the couple used more than
$250,000 to finance family
trips to Italy and Hawaii, golf
outings, school tuition, theater
tickets and even fast food pur-
chases, and then attempted to
conceal the illegal spending
in federal records. The judge
ordered the couple to not
leave the United States and
Hunter to hand over his two
legally owned firearms.
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