Born and raised on Oahu.
Hawaii to me is the most beautiful place on earth. A few places I've been come close, but Hawaii to me will always be #1.
But once and awhile, the place can display some of the most extreme, unpredictable weather. You are constantly reminded being there about how humans don't control nature, but nature controls you. Teaches you a lot about respecting all of what god creates and never taking things for granted.
My prayers are with those on the islands who have been affected by this.
We own two vacation homes on Anini Beach lagoon about 4 miles beyond where the flooding occurred. We were not there but from talking to our guests and our assistants who live nearby, the North Shore is generally fine and actually suffered less flooding than the Poipu area save for the dam failing. The worst impact was being shutoff from Lihue for about 36 hours and the draw down on food inventory at the Foodland market in Princeville that was fortunately relieved just in time by restoration of the Kuhio highway one-lane. Bottom line, it rained tremendously (e.g., Hanalei got 17 inches in 24 hours during one day earlier this month)but other than the dam tragedy and the travel impact for about two months by the partial road closure the North Shore is okay.</p>