Doug, Interrupted

Waikiki Beach

Light rain and intermittent winds commenced early Sunday morning. The warning sirens were activated at 11 o’ clock, no doubt to add to the fear factor. A quick jaunt to Ala Moana Center at 11:30am revealed that it was closed. A quick return to Waikiki was necessary because bus service abruptly ended at noon. All other establishments closed at noon as well. Fortunately, an Ahi Poke bowl (for lunch) was procured at the despicable ABC Store as a last resort before it closed. Total caloric intake for the day was reduced because of involuntary physical inactivity.

The humidity at noon became nearly unbearable. Thus, the air conditioning unit in the mausoleum at the “old folks home” in Waikiki was deployed intermittently throughout the day. Around 1pm, the light rain and winds both diminished. Overall, the day was fairly nice.

The 11am data released by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) established that Hurricane Douglas was just north of Mau’i. The path of the hurricane was confirmed, with landfall on O’ahu projected to be 9:30pm. Hurricane Watch status now included O’ahu and Kau’ai.

Then, the much awaited 5pm data from NHC (above) indicated that sometime around 2pm, Hurricane Douglas made an abrupt shift Northwest in trajectory. It is now passing above the remainder of the island chain with some wind and rain possibly affecting the North Shore.

As usual, there was a lot of fearmongering in the local media. However, a more reasonable approach is taken in Notes. Data from NHC takes precedence over local “talking heads.” So, the State remains in total “lockdown” again until tomorrow morning. Perhaps another read of the Notes post, “Lessons from Hurricane Lane,” is in order.

In the meantime, the daily counts for people testing positive for “super-duper corona” are now in the 60-70 range. The State “duffers” should really make a decision at this point in time. Either aggressively deploy “contact tracers” and locate all potentially infected individuals. Or, go with “herd immunity” (for lack of a better term), then forget the “lockdown” and face mask bullshit already.