Trump Approves Federal Emergency Declaration for Hawaii After Two Storms in Ten Days

President Trump on Tuesday approved a federal emergency declaration for Hawaii, clearing the way for direct federal assistance to Hawaiʻi County, Maui County and the City and County of Honolulu after Hurricane Lala tore through the Big Island earlier this month and a second storm, Tropical Storm Moke, followed just over a week later with renewed flooding across the same already-saturated terrain.

The declaration, requested by Hawaii Governor Josh Green, authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide direct federal assistance for emergency protective measures at 75 percent federal funding, covering costs the state and counties have absorbed since Lala made its closest approach to the islands on Aug. 14-16. In practice, that designation — Category B of FEMA's Public Assistance program — lets federal crews and equipment respond directly rather than simply reimbursing the state afterward, covering costs such as search and rescue, emergency debris clearance from roads and public rights-of-way, temporary emergency transportation, and distribution of food, water and first aid; the remaining 25 percent of eligible costs falls to state and county budgets. The move was confirmed in a news release from the Office of the Governor and reported by the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

The numbers

Lala, though it never made a direct landfall, dropped more than 40 inches of rain in parts of the Big Island's mountains — among the heaviest rainfall totals from any storm to strike the islands in more than a century. The flooding and landslides that followed damaged or destroyed more than 100 homes, washed out roads and bridges in rural Kaʻū district communities, and cut power to roughly 200,000 customers at the storm's peak. As of Aug. 25, about 4,330 Hawaiʻi Island customers remained without electricity, according to outage tracking cited in Big Island Now's recovery update. At least two deaths have been confirmed as storm-related: a 90-year-old woman who died in floodwaters and a man in his 60s whose body was later recovered near a highway. Hawaii County's initial damage assessment put losses to private and public structures at $49.3 million, with statewide estimates exceeding $81 million in FEMA-qualifying public assistance costs across roughly 790 affected households and properties.

How the second storm compounded the first — and the second disaster this year

Moke formed as a tropical storm in the days after Lala moved away from the islands and tracked south of the Big Island between Aug. 21 and 24, according to advisories from the National Hurricane Center, which had forecast rainfall totals as high as 15 inches before the system weakened faster than expected. Actual rainfall from Moke came in lighter than forecast, generally under three inches across most of the island, but forecasters and county officials had warned that even modest additional rain posed an outsized risk because Lala had already saturated hillsides and stripped vegetation across the southern Big Island. The Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency kept flash-flood guidance in place through Moke's passage, and Hawaiʻi County briefly reopened emergency shelters in Nāʻālehu and Pāhala with generator power as a precaution before the storm weakened. This is the second time this year Hawaii has sought federal disaster help: two consecutive Kona Low storm systems in March 2026 caused an estimated $1 billion in statewide damage, dropped 46 inches of rain on parts of Maui, produced wind gusts over 100 mph and forced the evacuation of 112 patients from a hospital in Kula, according to the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency's Kona Low recovery page; that disaster drew a major federal declaration in April, meaning some of the same rural communities are now navigating a second recovery process within five months.

Who is still affected

The recovery has fallen heaviest on Kaʻū district, the rural, largely agricultural region on the island's southern tip. Hawaiian Electric has said power could remain out for at least two more weeks in the hardest-hit pockets of Puna, North and South Kohala, and southern Kaʻū, including Nāʻālehu, Punaluʻu and Kīlauea, citing extensive damage to utility poles, storm-felled vegetation blocking access to Upper Puna, and complex repairs needed on remote high-voltage transmission lines, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. In Nāʻālehu, floodwaters also tore through two cemeteries — the town cemetery and the historic burial ground at Kauahaʻao Congregational Church in Waiʻōhinu — unearthing caskets and scattering headstones and remains across yards and roadways. A Hawaii National Guard team, working with Hawaii County Civil Defense, the state Department of Health, Maui County's Department of ʻOiwi Resources, local archaeologists and cultural and faith-based practitioners, has documented 69 sets of human remains displaced by the flooding, according to the Star-Advertiser's reporting on the recovery effort. Crews have blocked off the cemetery area and restricted debris removal nearby to prevent further disturbance, and officials say they are working directly with descendant families and their spiritual representatives to determine appropriate reinterment according to each family's wishes; no completion date has been set, though officials have said they are working quickly given the risk of further storms.

"The discovery of burials within the flood area was heartbreaking for the Naʻalehu community, and their pain is shared by our entire island," Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda said.

What officials are saying, and what happens next

Green, who had personally lobbied the White House and Department of Homeland Security for the declaration, said in his initial request that Lala "caused severe damage across our state and placed an extraordinary strain on communities already recovering from previous disasters." Alameda, whose county activated a temporary local disaster assistance program alongside the federal request, has repeatedly urged residents to check on elderly and isolated neighbors as recovery work continues, saying the county's "main focus remains addressing the immediate needs of the community, including access to food, water and other essential resources."

With the federal emergency declaration now in place, FEMA is expected to begin coordinating direct assistance with state and county crews on road, bridge and utility repairs, while Hawaiian Electric continues prioritizing restoration around emergency facilities and areas serving the most customers before reaching the most remote rural lines. The cemetery recovery effort in Nāʻālehu is expected to continue for weeks. Hawaii remains roughly two months from the formal end of the Central Pacific hurricane season, and state emergency officials have said they are continuing to monitor the tropics while the Big Island's saturated slopes remain at elevated risk of landslides.