Tourists Flee Resort Ruins, Crowd Airport

Tourists fled the once-plush hotels of this resort town in chartered boats and helicopters Sunday as food and water supplies dwindled on the hurricane-devastated island of Kauai.

Because the island remained without electricity or running water two days after Hurricane Iniki hit, those left behind used buckets of water from swimming pools and the ocean to flush their toilets.

In the city of Lihue northeast of here, travelers trudged to the airport carrying their bags, hoping to get aboard one of the few flights leaving the island, which depends on tourism for 80% of its economy.

“We had a couple of real nice days and then all hell broke loose,” said Dave Friedlander of Rochester, N. Y., whose honeymoon at the Westin Kauai Hotel was cut short by the storm. “The Westin was beautiful, the nicest place I ever saw. Now it’s wrecked.”

The line of stranded travelers stretched four deep the length of the terminal building and tempers were fraying. One woman, clutching her tow-headed toddler, burst into tears when a police officer refused to let her reclaim her place in line. “I just went to get my kid,” she sobbed. “It’s not fair.”

Although tourists were inconvenienced, it was the residents of the island who felt the impact of the hurricane most deeply.

“I feel bad for the islanders,” said Friedlander. “We have some place to go home to. We’re going to forget about our discomfort as soon as we get in the shower. They’re going to have to live with this.”

The small wooden homes of sugar cane workers inland from Poipu proved to be no match for the storm. The hurricane’s winds completely flattened some of them and tossed others around like a child’s toys.

On Sunday afternoon, one woman bathed in a stream running through the McBryde Sugar Co. property. Sugar cane that once stood eight feet high had been shredded by the scythe of the storm’s winds. Sugar once dominated this island and is still its second-largest employer behind the tourist industry.

Near the town of Koloa, a fire engine parked by the roadside dispensed water to passersby. Stores that opened Sunday were swamped with customers, but few markets still had bottled water.

“We waited 3 1/2 hours just to buy Cokes and peanut butter,” said Friedlander. “We’ve got one bottle of soda left.”

Roy Tanaka, who owns a hardware store, rode out the storm with his wife and son in a closet bolstered with mattresses at their Lihue home. “The real scary part was when the walls started to shake, like a bellows,” he said. The wind ripped off part of his roof and rain poured into his home.

His family spent the weekend trying to clean out the house. “I don’t know how we’re going to get water,” he said. “This just sets everybody back.”

At the Westin Kauai Lagoons, a luxury hotel on the southeastern side of Kauai, officials said the complex had suffered $20 million to $30 million in damages. Hundreds of guests were milling about the grounds Sunday morning, making do with the hotel’s limited and dwindling food supplies.

Hotel spokesman Ray Brum said that about 1,200 guests had been staying in the hotel when the storm hit. They were herded into a ballroom a few hours before Iniki struck. But when the ballroom roof began to leak, they were moved underground to the hotel’s basement.

“There were no injuries, thank God,” Brum said. “There was no panicking and people came through fine.”

Brum said he was concerned, however, because the hotel has few medical supplies and is fast running out of food and water.

“We need to get these people off this island,” he said. “We need water. We need food. But what we really need is to get these people out.”

At the Hyatt Regency Kauai, more than 1,000 guests were herded underground into an eight-foot-wide service tunnel during the height of the storm. Employees handed guests dinners as they walked into the tunnel. When they emerged after the storm had passed, they found a badly battered hotel. Tiles from the roof and debris were strewn about the grounds and a formerly pristine swimming lagoon was flooded with ocean water and littered with rocks, sand, driftwood and branches.

One hotel guest, Angel Salazar-Brooks, sitting on a rolled carpet in the hotel’s front lobby Sunday, said it was tough to explain to her 3-year-old daughter what had happened. “All she knows is that when she came to the hotel in the island everything was beautiful. And then we go underground and when we come back up, it’s all this destruction.”

But the young mother was more worried about her 11-month-old daughter, Danielle, who was suffering from dehydration and was awaiting a helicopter that would take her to an Oahu hospital for treatment.

The Hyatt Regency opened its doors to about 40 homeless Kauai residents, setting up beds, dormitory style, in the ballroom. A diesel generator provided the 50-acre property with bare-bones electricity, and the staff served three meals a day through the weekend, winning standing ovations from its guests.

The hotel chartered a boat to ferry 400 guests off the island at noon Sunday, following a group of 210 Federal Express employees who had left by sea earlier that morning. Before leaving, hotel guests set up a disaster relief fund for hotel workers, one visitor pitching in $1,000.

The hotel has enough food and drinking water to last through Tuesday, according to Rick Riess, the general manager.

Just down the road, National Guardsmen cordoned off the Poipu Village Shopping Center, where uprooted trees and roofing material lay strewn amid broken glass. An ice cream store owner was desperately trying to keep his goods cold with a portable generator.

Gary and Darlene Joseph were there to check on their store, Overboard Swimwear. They were relieved to see it largely intact but were not so sure about their own future.

“We survived the storm, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to survive the aftermath,” Gary Joseph said.

“We’re more apprehensive about what’s going to happen now with all the hotels stopping,” his wife said. “If you’re a food store it’s one thing, if you’re a clothing store . . . how do you pay the rent? For them (tourists), it’s not as bad. Everybody’s giving them free food. They can party hardy and get out.”

But the hurricane was no picnic for anyone. Kathy Jones, 37, of Encinitas, Calif., her husband and 17-month-old son and her sister slept on the floor at Kauai Community College while others slept on pool tables Friday and Saturday nights.

After the eye of the hurricane passed, people were permitted to leave the shelter to use nearby rest rooms.

“When she was outside, my sister saw a roof lying nearby,” Kathy Jones said. “She said: ‘It was (just like) Dorothy being in Kansas.’ ”

Essoyan is a special correspondent and Merina is a Times staff writer.