HONOLULU (AP) — The death toll in Hawaii from Lala rose to two with the discovery of a man’s body near a highway, while efforts continued to remove massive amounts of debris left behind by the storm while the number of homes and businesses without electricity dwindled.Now far west of Hawaii, Lala strengthened Wednesday into a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds reaching 125 mph (205 kph) as it crossed warm Pacific waters. The remains of the man in his 60s were located by residents in a pasture Tuesday in the largest and southernmost district on the Big Island, a day after police were asked to conduct a welfare check, police Lt. David Po’ohina said in a news release. Po’ohina said the death appears to be storm-related. Last weekend, Lala raked past the Big Island as a hurricane and then skirted neighboring islands as a tropical storm, pounding the volcanic archipelago with high winds and heavy rains before moving off to the west. Lala also was blamed for the death of a 93-year-old woman whose body was found Monday after she was reported missing in Naalehu on the Big Island’s southern tip.
Work continued Wednesday to clear away tons of mud and debris left behind by a torrent of water that inundated buildings, some of whose roofs were sheared off by the winds. Dozens of homes were washed from foundations, bridges were damaged and a collapsed section of a two-lane road had cut off access to the community of Pahala. The heaviest recorded rainfall, 43.54 inches (1.1 meters), occurred in Laupahoehoe on the northeast coast of the Big Island, the National Weather Service said.
