Maui Upcountry Storm and Kihei Flood

It must have been strange for some Kihei residents to have found themselves knee-deep in water without a drop of rain having fallen there. If you are shopping around for a Kihei home, the recent flooding should serve as a warning that you should opt for real estate with a little elevation to it. Of course, flooding isn't much of an issue for Kihei condo units above the first floor, but it's a good idea to make sure that if you are looking for a ground floor residence, you don't want it to be sitting in a low, flat area.

Even floods like the one earlier in the week don't scare off devoted Kihei residents like Jim Boulton, who was interviewed in a recent Maui News article. His property has flooded five times, but according to him, this last one was the worst. Boulton is 72 years old, and refuses to live anywhere else after 38 years of residence on his property. In a statement he made to the Maui News, Boulton explained, "I can't move, I live here. I built this house. I built everything here." He has even filled the property with sand in an effort to raise the ground level, but to no avail.

So what happened exactly? Haleakala got rain. A lot of rain. The National Weather Service calculated 4.17 inches of rainfall in Pukalani in a 24 hour period. That's another oddity. Pukalani is a notoriously dry area. Kula got 0.83 inches and Haiku got 0.81 inches. If you know Maui, you're probably aware that this is one of the funny things about it. You can be sitting in the sun on your back porch while it's raining on the front porch. Literally. That's why we have so many rainbows. In this case, Pukalani was visited by a slow-moving storm that brought thunder and lightning with it, and enough rain to bathe Kihei in muddy water.

The flood knocked out the power for a couple of hours when a Kihei electrical circuit went down at 1am. The cable television was out for a while as well. There were also outages in Haiku, Omaopio and Makawao. No injuries have been reported. So remember, pick your Kihei property with elevation in mind. You'll find our contact information at the bottom of the page, should you need any assistance. Mahalo!