Hurricane Lala didn’t make landfall on Hawaii’s Big Island. Not officially, anyway — and if you’re looking at what used to be your neighbor’s house in Naʻalehu right now, that distinction probably feels beside the point.

We covered the forecast and the initial waiver window on Friday, before anyone knew exactly how bad this would get. The storm has since passed. So has the uncertainty about what it actually did: Lala’s eyewall grazed Hawaii Island’s southern tip early Sunday morning without the eye ever crossing the coastline, Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines report their networks are back to normal schedules today, and the fee-free rebooking window both carriers offered got extended one more day to cover it. If you’re flying to Hawaii this week, here’s where things actually stand — not where the Friday forecast said they’d land.

Hurricane Lala Aftermath — Quick Verdict

Factor	Status
Storm status	Weakened to post-tropical remnants, moving away from the islands
Peak strength	Category 1 hurricane at closest approach, Saturday, Aug 15
Landfall	Did not technically make landfall — eyewall grazed the Big Island’s southern coast
Historic significance	Closest a hurricane has come to striking Hawaii Island since an unnamed 1871 storm
Confirmed deaths	1, in a car accident officials haven’t formally tied to the storm
Homes destroyed/damaged	100+, concentrated in Naʻalehu and Waiʻōhinu
Rainfall peak	28+ inches on the Big Island’s interior; 32 inches at La Poya, Maui
Power outages	114,000+ customers still out statewide as of early Monday
Hilo (ITO) / Kona (KOA) airports	Reopened after inspection; normal schedules resumed Monday, Aug 17
Hawaiian/Alaska waiver	Extended through Monday, Aug 17 — fee-free change, same cabin

What Actually Happened This Weekend

Lala did what the Friday forecast said it might: it kept strengthening on approach and hit Category 1 strength as it closed in on the Big Island’s southern coast Saturday. The eyewall passed near or over the island’s southern tip early Sunday morning — close enough to bring hurricane-force gusts, but the eye itself stayed just offshore. The National Weather Service confirmed it never technically made landfall, even though the damage on the ground doesn’t read like a near miss.

Flash flooding tore through the coastal Kaʻū district Saturday evening, sweeping homes off their foundations in Naʻalehu and Waiʻōhinu. CBS News reported more than 28 inches of rain fell across the Big Island’s interior, with a peak gauge reading over 42 inches in Laupāhoehoe — the kind of total that turns hillsides into landslides. Maui got hit too, with 32 inches recorded at La Poya as Lala’s outer bands swept west across the chain. One person died in a car accident near the island’s southern tip, though officials say they haven’t formally confirmed it as storm-related. Over 114,000 homes and businesses were still without power statewide as of early Monday, per outage-tracking data CBS cited — down from a much higher peak Saturday night, but still a lot of people running on generators three days later.

Gov. Josh Green put the home-damage estimate at 100 or more structures destroyed or damaged, most of it concentrated in the same Kaʻū flooding zone. That’s a real number attached to a storm whose headline, technically, is that it missed.

Did Hurricane Lala Make Landfall on the Big Island?

No. Lala’s eyewall grazed the southern coast of Hawaii Island early Sunday morning as a Category 1 hurricane, but the storm’s center — the eye — never crossed onto land. The National Weather Service classified it as a near-miss rather than a landfall, even though hurricane-force winds, flash flooding, and storm damage reached the island regardless. It’s the closest a hurricane has come to hitting Hawaii Island since an unnamed 1871 storm, the last confirmed hurricane landfall on record there.

That’s a technicality that matters for the record books and matters basically not at all if your roof came off in Naʻalehu. Worth knowing anyway, because it’s the reason you’ll see coverage calling this both “historic” and “a near miss” in the same sentence — both are true.

Are Hilo and Kona Airports Open Now?

Yes, as of Monday, Aug 17. Here’s the sequence:

1. Saturday, Aug 15: Both Hilo International (ITO) and Ellison Onizuka Kona International (KOA) suspended operations ahead of the storm’s closest approach, grounding flights through the worst of the weather.
2. Sunday, Aug 16: Airport crews ran runway and terminal inspections at both fields once conditions cleared enough to access them safely.
3. Monday, Aug 17: Both airports resumed normal operations, and Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines confirmed a full return to scheduled service.

Honolulu (HNL), Kahului (OGG), and Lihue (LIH) saw reduced schedules over the weekend but never fully closed — the storm’s worst effects stayed concentrated on Hawaii Island and, to a lesser extent, Maui.

What Happened to the Hawaiian Airlines Waiver

The original waiver we covered Friday covered travel dates of August 14 through 17. Once it became clear Sunday’s cleanup would run into Monday, Hawaiian and Alaska extended the window by a day, offering fee-free changes for anyone with travel scheduled through Monday, Aug 17. Between Aug 14 and 16, the two carriers canceled 112 Neighbor Island flights and 31 transpacific flights combined — the bulk of it concentrated on Saturday and Sunday, when Hilo and Kona were closed outright.

If you were booked to fly anywhere in Hawaii through today and haven’t rebooked, you can still make a fee-free change into the same cabin class — no fare difference, no change fee. That’s the same structure as the original waiver, just stretched one more day to actually match how long the disruption ran. Outside today’s window, you’re back to standard fare rules, though if Hawaiian or Alaska cancels or significantly delays your specific flight, DOT rules entitle you to a refund or rebooking regardless of what the waiver’s fine print says.

What to Do If You’re Flying to Hawaii This Week

If you’re flying today, Aug 17: Confirm your specific flight status before you leave for the airport rather than assuming “normal schedule” means every flight is unaffected. Recovery days after a storm like this tend to have scattered delays even once the official all-clear is out — aircraft and crews are still resetting into position. The unified Alaska/Hawaiian app shows real-time changes faster than a general airport departures board.

If you’re flying to the Big Island specifically: Build in extra time beyond the airport. Roads in the Kaʻū district and parts of the Hāmākua coast saw flood and landslide damage that may still affect ground transportation even with flights running normally. Check road conditions separately from flight status — an on-time landing doesn’t guarantee a clear drive to your hotel.

If your travel plans still qualify for the waiver: Rebook now. The extension covers travel through today only, and once Monday ends, you’re back under standard change-fee rules whether your original flight was ever actually at risk or not.

If you’re weighing a claim through travel insurance or a credit card benefit: A named storm that’s already passed is a cleaner claim than one filed mid-event, but you still need documentation — cancellation notices, rebooking confirmations, receipts for anything you paid for out of pocket while stranded. Credit card trip-delay coverage that reimburses hotel and meal costs regardless of cause tends to process faster than airline-goodwill claims for exactly this kind of situation.

If you’re deciding whether to still go to the Big Island this week: Flights are running and airports are open, but this isn’t the same island it was Friday. If your trip includes the Kaʻū district or anywhere near the flooding zone, check with your accommodation directly before assuming everything’s back to normal — “the airport reopened” and “the destination is fully recovered” are two different claims, and only one of them is confirmed.

How This Stacks Up Against the Friday Forecast

Friday’s post flagged Lala as a storm that could become the Big Island’s first-ever confirmed hurricane landfall. It came close enough to justify the warning — a Category 1 eyewall grazing the coast, 28-plus inches of rain, homes swept off foundations — without crossing the technical line that would’ve made it the historic first. That’s not a case of the forecast overreacting. Mainland disruptions like Memorial Day’s weather chaos tend to resolve into “delayed a day, rebooked, done.” A storm that skirts an island chain with no interstate highway to reroute onto plays out differently, and Hawaiian’s waiver extension — one extra day, tightly scoped — reflects that this was a real disruption even without the landfall headline.

The airline side of this resolved about as cleanly as it could: waiver extended to actually match the disruption window, both closed airports back to normal within about 48 hours, no drawn-out multi-day rebooking backlog like WestJet’s strike aftermath produced earlier this year. The ground side — the flooding, the homes, the power still out for 114,000-plus people — is going to take longer than a Monday flight schedule to sort out.

The Bottom Line

Hurricane Lala grazed Hawaii Island’s southern coast early Sunday without technically making landfall, the closest any hurricane has come to hitting the island since 1871. That technicality didn’t spare Naʻalehu and Waiʻōhinu from real flood damage, didn’t stop one death, and didn’t keep 100-plus homes from being destroyed or damaged. It also didn’t stop Hilo and Kona from reopening by Monday morning or Hawaiian and Alaska from getting back to normal schedules the same day, after extending their fee-free waiver through today to cover the gap.

If you’re flying to Hawaii this week: check your specific flight, not just the general “resumed” headline. If you’re headed to the Big Island: check road and destination conditions separately from airport status. And if your travel dates still fall inside today’s waiver window, rebook now — it closes tonight.

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Information current as of August 17, 2026, based on Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines’ published advisory, CBS News, and Civil Beat reporting on National Weather Service assessments. Storm cleanup and travel conditions continue to change — verify current airport and road status before traveling to Hawaii Island.