All buses except the 403 in Nanakuli were running today, so I took the C bus to town. Boy, did I underestimate the traffic — 3 1/2 hours to get to town! (It usually takes a little over an hour.) Two of those hours were spent crawling along the five-mile stretch of Farrington Highway, from Ma’ili and Nanakuli. And along the way, I took pics, of course. Most of them are kind of dark because of the weather, and I’m too lazy to work my Photoshop magic.

A downed utility pole in Ma’ili. One of the first ones I saw.

Look at where the pole snapped… like a twig!

Hawaiian Electric trucks — they’re everywhere!

These trucks are lifting a shattered piece of a utility pole.

The Wai’anae Mountain Range is behind those houses, in the distance… but you can’t seem them in this weather!

Fastop/Freedom Gas Station in Nanakuli. The roof was busted after a utility pole crashed through it. (The pole’s fixed in this picture.)

It’s raining, it’s pouring, Liberty’s not snoring!

By the time I got to town, my marketing class — the only class I had today — was over, but I still had an advertising club meeting at 2:30. And I just took over the ad club’s presidency, so… of course I went. So did my adviser and three other members, and two of them are officers. Wonderful. The traffic coming back into Wai’anae was bad, but not as bad as this morning’s… took about an hour to get through Nanakuli. Hopefully, those poles get fixed soon and the people there will get their power back! And traffic will smooth over!

(Photos from the Honolulu Advertiser)

I knew a storm was coming, but I guess I didn’t realize the kind of impact it would make.

Right before going to bed at 11 pm last night, the power went out. I woke up at 3 am to a loud, howling gust; my eyes gradually opened up to look out my bedroom window, revealing the pair of miniature palm trees outside flailing in the 60 mph wind. Not quite hurricane status, but damn close. Eerie stuff. Then, there was a downpour. I got out of bed and found my mom in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess — the rain had blown in through the window and created a large puddle on the floor. About 45 minutes later, you could hear thunder in the distance. It took a while for me to get back to sleep.

I woke up again at 7 am to a calm but overcast morning. I turned on the radio to hear the latest news. The wind had taken down about 20 utility poles in Nanakuli, and about another 20 in Ma’ili. And there were no buses leaving or coming into Wai’anae.

Yeah, we were stuck here.

Wai’anae High School was closed today, so my sister was home, and I missed my communication theory class today, the first (and only) time this semester! (Last class before finals week.) Fortunately, our professor was kind enough to email the notes from today’s class. I wonder how many people showed up to class. (HPU Downtown Campus was open today. Windward Campus was not.)

No power. No cable. No Internet. No phone. And NO WATER, since a downed papaya tree in our yard somehow burst a water pipe that leads from the main water line to our house. It wasn’t quite Third World (far from it), but bath time took me back to the times we visited the Philippines and had to take baths using bowls to scoop water and dump over ourselves. (My dad came home after sitting in traffic for five hours. He fixed the water line in the early afternoon, but we still had to conserve water, especially the hot water.)

I spent the day lying in bed and listening to the radio (news and holiday music, sheesh), while my sister played on her Nintendo DS. We chatted about random stuff — topics included “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”, my final project for advertising class, and a family picture in the living room. In the early evening, my sister mimicked everything I was telling her by making shadow puppets. That cracked me up. Plus, while I washed the dishes, my sister waved the flashlight around, creating a strobe/rave effect. I used to do that a lot, too, haha. It was actually a pleasant day without the technology that’s usually is present in our day-to-day.

In the middle of our shadow puppetry, the power came on — that was about an hour and a half ago, at 7 pm. Twenty hours with no power, dang. Phone line’s still out, though. Plus, the wind and rain will continue through the rest of the week, though it won’t be as strong as this. At least, that’s what they say…

Some news coverage if you want more info:
- “Hard-hit Wai’anae assesses storm damage”
- “Crews to work into the night on downed telephone poles”
- A video from the Honolulu Advertiser about the downed utility poles here