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Hawaii's worst hurricane arrived before the warnings did

In September 1992, Hurricane Iniki became the most powerful storm ever to hit Hawaii, forming off the coast of Africa as a tropical wave before crossing Central America and developing into a cyclone in the eastern Pacific. Forecasters initially expected it to pass harmlessly south of the islands, but a weakening ridge and favorable winds let it intensify and curve north instead. It roared ashore on Kauaʻi with winds near 140 mph, crossing the island in just forty minutes before racing back out to sea and eventually dissolving into a cold front near Alaska. The storm's minimum pressure was the lowest ever recorded in the central Pacific at that time.

Because the Central Pacific Hurricane Center had limited data and leaned on distant Miami forecasts, warnings went out less than a day before landfall, yet Hawaii's response was swift: tens of thousands evacuated to shelters, schools and businesses closed, and sirens sounded across Kauaʻi and Oʻahu. That preparation, along with lingering memories of Hurricane Andrew's destruction in Florida weeks earlier, likely kept the death toll to seven. Still, Iniki flattened or badly damaged thousands of homes on Kauaʻi, toppled a third of the island's power poles, wrecked hotels and crops, and left parts of the island without electricity for months. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg and his Jurassic Park crew happened to be sheltering on the island during the storm, and footage of its aftermath ended up written into the finished movie.

In the storm's wake, Kauaʻi residents held impromptu parties to use up spoiling food, amateur radio operators stepped in when phone and broadcast networks failed, and the military delivered aid faster than local officials could even request it. Recovery dragged on for months, with many islanders frustrated by slow insurance payouts, prompting the governor to create a now-defunct relief fund for future disasters. The hurricane also had lasting ecological effects, wiping out nearly all of a rare native plant and likely causing another species to go extinct, while destroyed chicken coops are blamed for Kauaʻi's enduring population of feral chickens. Its name was later retired and has never been reused for a Pacific storm, and the storm itself went on to feature in several television documentaries about disasters.

The name comes from the Hawaiian word ʻiniki, meaning a strong, piercing wind. The storm caused about $3.1 billion in damage in 1992 dollars and then drifted off to die halfway to Alaska.

Read the whole of Hurricane Iniki on Wikipedia

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