WAINIHA — A 49-year-old woman is safe after being swept out to sea during the flash flood early Sunday morning in Wainiha.
About 12:40 a.m. on Sunday, firefighters and police were dispatched to Wainiha Bay to conduct a search for a Wainiha woman who had reportedly been swept out to sea.
Once on scene, responders learned that the woman and two other individuals were attempting to evacuate their home by boat along the Wainiha River when the boat flipped over in the rapid waters, a county press release said.
The two other occupants of the boat, a man and child, were able to get to safety, but the woman became distressed in the fast-moving waters and was swept away. They were not identified.
Neighbors downstream heard the woman’s cries for help and called first responders. After a short search, responders followed the woman’s cries and found she made her way to a shoreline below a cliff. Princeville firefighters climbed down the cliff and assisted her out to awaiting American Medical Response medics.
The woman sustained non-life threatening injuries to her head. With assistance from state Department of Transportation officials, Engine 1 (Princeville) was able to transport the injured woman through the flooded and closed portion of Kuhio Highway in Hanalei.
Kauai Fire Department Deputy Chief Kilipaki Vaughan said the fact the lady was unharmed was miraculous.
“To be swept out to sea with dirty water, a lingering northwest swell, and poor lighting, and this was just after the full moon, but it was overcast, and it was poor lighting,” she is fortunate to be alive today, said Vaughan.
“For her to come out in this scenario is probably 1-in-50 odds. In the future, with climate change making weather more extreme, a scenario like this could become 1-in-100.”
“This was her lucky day,” he said in a telephone interview Sunday. Vaughan estimated the woman was swept around 150 yards out to sea, and somehow made it back to shore on her own.
Fire personnel met AMR medics on the Princeville side of the Hanalei River bridge, where they assessed her injuries and provided additional support while transporting her to Wilcox Medical Center for further treatment.
Kauai was under a flash-flood warning from 10 p.m. Saturday to 12:30 p.m. Sunday. A flash-flood watch remains in effect through Monday afternoon.
Kuhio Highway in the vicinity of the Hanalei Bridge was closed late Saturday due to heavy rains but reopened Sunday morning to one lane of alternating traffic.
For updates on road conditions and closures, please call 241-1725. Please do not call 911 unless it is an emergency.
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The Garden Island reporter Jason Blasco contributed to this report.
