Lala strengthens to a Category 3 hurricane while moving northwest away from Hawaii

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.

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.

About 19,000 customers remained without power on Wednesday in Hawaii, down from nearly 104,000 on Monday afternoon, the Hawaiian Electric utility said. It said nearly all customers should have power restored by Friday.

Gaining new strength over warm Pacific waters, Lala strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 kph).

It was moving to the northwest at 9 mph (15 kph) and was bearing down on an area that included the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge at the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago. The population in one of the most remote places on Earth consists entirely of a few dozen U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff, volunteers and contractors. Forecasters warned that hurricane conditions were expected in portions of the region by Thursday.

The hurricane center called it the first major hurricane of 2026 in the Central Pacific. Lala was a tropical storm when it battered parts of Hawaii on Sunday as it passed by without making landfall.

Meanwhile, forecasters were keeping watch on a storm system located far east-southeast of Hawaii. The hurricane center said conditions appeared conducive for a tropical depression likely to form over the next few days.