Hawaii is facing flash floods and mudslides that have swept away some homes after category one Hurricane Lala skirted Big Island, leaving one person dead in a car accident.

A search-and-rescue operation was under way after several properties were uprooted from their foundations in the coastal communities of Naalehu and Waiohinu.

Despite not even making landfall, the storm still dumped up to 35in (89cm) of rain in places, sending torrents raging down mountainsides. More than 200,000 householders were without power.

Although Lala has weakened to a tropical storm and was moving westward, south of Hawaii, the danger is not over, say officials.

The storm’s eyewall howled within 30 miles (48km) of Big Island’s South Point overnight, but it was close enough to bring flash flooding, Hawaii County said on Sunday.

After gaining hurricane strength on Saturday afternoon, packing wind speeds of 91mph, Lala’s winds have now decreased to near 65mph, said the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in its latest advisory at 14:00 EDT (18:00 GMT) on Sunday.

But tropical storm warnings remain in effect for all eight of Hawaii’s major islands.

“Lala is expected to produce additional rainfall of 4 to 8 inches across the Big Island and windward Maui, with maximum storm totals of 30 to 35 inches,” the NHC said, while the rest of the island chain can expect rainfall of 4 to 6in.

The US National Weather Service’s office in Honolulu said it had had reports of two homes being swept away amid the intense rainfall.

Mayor Kimo Alameda said the county’s civil defence agency had launched a search-and-rescue operation to find people whose homes may have been destroyed in the floods.

“What makes this very challenging is that there’s rushing water, there’s debris, there’s boulders on the road, and it’s dark,” he said earlier.

About 180 Hawaii National Guard members have been deployed to help with the emergency response.

Some 219,000 customers had lost electricity on Hawaii as of Sunday morning local time, according to tracker PowerOutage.

Three hospitals also lost power, but had backup generators.

Big Island’s two main airports, Hilo International and Ellison Onizuka Kona, were temporarily closed, but have since reopened.

According to the governor, 190 flights have been postponed.

In Maui, some residents were left without water supply on Saturday.

Iniki, a powerful category four storm, was the last hurricane to hit Hawaii back in 1992.

It caused six deaths and $3bn in damage after making landfall on the southern coast of Kauai.

Hurricane season in the US has been relatively quiet the last few years – the last major storm was category three Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida in October 2024.

This year has seen a strong El Niño – a periodically occurring area of unusually warm surface water – develop in the Pacific, driven in part by climate change.

As hurricanes and typhoons feed off warm sea waters, this spike in ocean temperatures could facilitate a higher number of storms that grow to have a greater intensity.