The worst flooding to hit Hawaii in two decades has local residents desperate for relief.
The floods have swept homes from their foundations, littered beaches with debris, and covered entire neighborhoods in a thick, volcanic mud.
Although no deaths have been reported, hundreds of people across Oahu and Maui have been rescued from their now-destroyed homes, and the National Weather Service now has The Big Island under flash flood watches. Governor Josh Green has formally asked the Trump administration to deploy federal disaster aid assistance, and he estimates the cost of the storm could top $1 billion in damages.
In the meantime, everyday people are stepping in to keep one another safe.
In a video shared by Mark W. Talaei, a local content creator who goes by “Mean Hawaii” on Instagram, a group of men creatively rescued a local elderly neighbor from her flooding home.
Talaei said he was walking through the Mokuleia neighborhood in Oahu, “looking to see who needed help.” He came across a family who was trying to evacuate a 98-year-old elder from her home, and Talaei went off to find some assistance.
“All these braddahs came to the rescue of this 98-year-old woman,” he wrote in a caption. “This rescue was very emotional for me. It was beautiful seeing all da braddahs get together as one big strong Ohana.”
In the video, a group of strong, burly men wades through muddy waters, with much of the flooding up to their knees. The video zooms in on the woman’s porch, which is quickly being consumed by the brown sludge.
Rescue crews — some who seem to be official first responders, and some locals wearing wetsuits — initially attempted to pull the woman out of the home and carry her to safety.
But then, they had another idea.
A group of neighbors came rolling in on a front-loading tractor, four men valiantly arriving in the bucket of the truck.
“There’s a 98-year-old woman in there in a wheelchair,” Talaei calls out to the men in the video.
They quickly got to work, helping the woman comfortably prepare to load into the bucket of the tractor with them, still in her wheelchair, her legs wrapped in a trash bag to keep dry, as she prayed.
Soon, she was evacuated to safety, and the men were off to their next job.
But Talalei’s video of the rescue has stopped thousands in their tracks, overcome by the pride they have in the Hawaiian community.
“So grateful,” the woman’s granddaughter wrote. “This is my nana and couldn’t be more emotional than seeing the community come together to help in this time of need. God bless you.”
“This is what happens when people move with heart. No waiting, no division, no ego; just love in action. Just people choosing to stand up for one another,” another person commented.
“You don’t need any system to show strength like this. This is true mana. This is a community lifting each other, protecting their kūpuna, moving as one,” they continued. “In a world that feels so broken sometimes … this reminded me of who we really are. I’m proud to be from Hawaiʻi. This is aloha. Real aloha.”
You may also like: Two years since Maui fires, 900 Hawaii residents move into historic tiny home village: 'Second largest in the nation'
Header image courtesy of Mark W. Talaei/Instagram
