{"id":542013,"date":"2026-03-24T08:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T08:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/542013\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T08:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T08:55:14","slug":"worst-hawaii-flooding-in-20-years-leaves-some-homes-in-mud-as-recovery-begins-we-lost-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/542013\/","title":{"rendered":"Worst Hawaii flooding in 20 years leaves some homes in mud as recovery begins: “We lost everything”"},"content":{"rendered":"

O’ahu resident Melanie Lee saw what’s left of her house for the first time on Monday after the worst flooding Hawaii<\/a> has seen in two decades turned parts of the islands’ emerald communities into mud.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’ve been here almost 20 years. I lost … We lost everything,” Lee told CBS News. “My children’s pictures. Just real sentimental stuff. Now it’s like, now where we go from here?”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hawaii is just beginning the recovery from a pair of massive storms that unleashed up to 4 feet of rain in parts of O’ahu and Maui over the past week, Gov. Josh Green said.<\/p>\n

The latest storm prompted evacuation orders north of Honolulu, where officials said more than 200 people were rescued<\/a>. In northern O’ahu, members of the National Guard trudged through waist-deep water to help stranded drivers and mudbound homeowners. More than 2,000 people were without power over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Flooded<\/p>\n

Vantor satellite image shows flooded farms, fields, and buildings near Waialua with muddy storm debris flowing into the ocean after severe rains caused major flooding.<\/p>\n

Satellite image (c) 2026 Vantor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The island of Maui was also hit hard. The storm blasted down riverbeds, blew out bridges and roads and swallowed vehicles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Officials haven’t been able to assess the destruction fully but the cost of the storm could top $1 billion, including damage to airports, schools, roads, people’s homes and a Maui hospital in Kula, Green said.<\/p>\n

“This is going to have a very serious consequence for us as a state,” the governor said during a news conference. He also said his chief of staff spoke to the White House and received assurances of federal support.<\/p>\n

Among those displaced is Honolulu-born actor Jason Momoa. In a video posted to Instagram, the “Aquaman” actor said he and his family left the North Shore and the power had gone out.<\/p>\n

“We’re safe now, but there’s a lot of people who weren’t, so sending all our love,” Momoa said.<\/p>\n

\"US-WEATHER-FLOODS<\/p>\n

Residents and volunteers work on cleaning up after the Kona Low storm flood that devastated the Otake Camp community in Waialua, Hawaii, on March 22, 2026.<\/p>\n

Marco GARCIA \/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Carol Philips, the vice president of North Shore Chamber of Commerce, described one house where eight people were living as just “gone.”<\/p>\n

While no one was killed in the storms and flooding, and the worst of the storms has passed, the damage and recovery are both financially and emotionally costly.<\/p>\n

As the communities in Maui continue to rebuild their homes<\/a> and their lives two years after the wildfires killed 102 people, the flooding added to the sorrow.<\/p>\n

“We know for so many people the fires are one thing, and now to have flooding and in some cases their homes that they had just moved into … It can feel overwhelming,” said U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, who represents parts of O’ahu.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

\n Go deeper with The Free Press\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"O’ahu resident Melanie Lee saw what’s left of her house for the first time on Monday after the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1023,11639,3,25049,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-542013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-flooding","tag-hawaii","tag-news","tag-severe-weather","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}