The last hurricane to make landfall in Hawaii hurtled across the island of Kauai in September 1992. The storm crashed 20-foot waves over roadways, leveled buildings and homes, and knocked out power across the lush landscape known as the Garden Island.
Footage of the fierce winds and rain also appeared the following year in a Hollywood blockbuster. The hurricane interrupted production for Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” tearing through some of the film’s sets, including the velociraptor holding pen.
“It was scattered across the valley,” said Chipper Wichman, who was the director of the preserve where the set was built. He added, “We are still finding boards with nails.”
That storm, Hurricane Iniki, caused $1.8 billion in damage and at least seven deaths.
Tropical Storm Lala strengthened into a hurricane on Saturday morning as it swirled toward the Big Island, where it is expected to bring significant rain, wind and flooding.
Hurricanes are common in the Pacific, but rarely affect Hawaii because of its small size in the big ocean. Since 1950, only 19 hurricanes have passed within 100 miles of the archipelago, eight of them during El Niño years like 2026 is shaping up to be.
“Hawaii is a small target,” said Cary Mock, a professor of geography at the University of South Carolina who researches climatology. Even tropical storms are rare, and just two hurricanes have made landfall in the last century: Dot in 1959, and Iniki in 1992.
Both hit Kauai, the state’s northernmost island, which measures a mere 33 miles across. Iniki struck as a Category 4 storm, the strongest Hawaiian storm on record. The storm was passing south of the islands — a typical track for hurricanes that near Hawaii — but then took a hard right into Kauai.
Though Lala is following a similar track south of the archipelago, forecasts show that Kauai is likely to be spared the worst of the damage this time.
On the day after Iniki hit, JoAnn Yukimura, who was mayor of Kauai County at the time, surveyed the damage from a helicopter with other officials. Winds had ripped the lush green foliage off the jagged ridges of the Napali Coast, which now appeared completely brown.
When the helicopter circled to the island’s South Shore, passengers gazed down on an area that had been hit by some of the strongest winds and waves. They swallowed coastal homes and resorts.
“I couldn’t even recognize it, because it looked as if giant claws had scraped everything off the landscape,” Ms. Yukimura said.
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