Brunt of winds 'like thunder' at house that lost all of its roof
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
Conrad Colbert struggled to explain what he heard as the wind tore the roof off his Kailua home Wednesday. The sound he heard when dozens of 16-penny nails were ripped out of beams were like a giant hand on a chalkboard.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
"Screeching," he recalled yesterday. "That screeching noise of it getting ripped out of the wood, just high-pitched, metal and wood getting ripped apart."
Sharon Colbert —with her grandchildren Brock, 2, and Brendon, 6, and her daughter Deidre Camarillo — surveys the damage that winds inflicted on the Kailua home where Conrad Colbert lives with his girlfriend and two sons.
Then he heard a "big bang."
"It sounded like thunder coming through my roof."
The two-bedroom rented house that Colbert shared with his longtime girlfriend and two sons appears to have suffered the most serious damage from Wednesday's wild windstorm, according to the Hawai'i chapter of the American Red Cross, which surveyed damage statewide.
The Red Cross said three homes on Kaua'i and 31 on O'ahu had structural damage. Only 10 O'ahu homes had significant damage, with Colbert's by far the worst.
Half of the wood and metal roof landed on the neighbor's two-story home, 30 feet away, Colbert said. Pieces of torn metal had sailed 100 feet down the street.
The living room and master bedroom were exposed, with nothing but a thin canec wallboard ceiling between him and the sky.
That's when things got worse.
"The front half of the roof was totally wiped clean off the house," he said. "And maybe about 10 minutes later, it started thunderstorming and then I had about 3 inches of rain in my house."
Colbert quickly drove to Kane'ohe and rented a moving van. When he got home, he and his girlfriend began grabbing anything of value — anything that wasn't so soaked, it couldn't be saved.
He estimates he lost $4,000 to $5,000 worth of possessions. He has no renter's insurance.
"It has been a catastrophe," said Colbert, 28. "I lost couches, my bed, a couple of wood objects. We lost a lot of things. Carpet. Ceiling fans."
But it's actually worse than that.
Rats had lived between canec and the roof, so the stench of their rain-soaked waste now permeates everything still in the home, Colbert said.
"Everything smells horrendous," he said. "You almost want to barf."
About 40 electricity customers remained without power yesterday afternoon, said Jose Dizon, spokesman for Hawaiian Electric Co. All told, more than 70,000 customers lost power at some point, Dizon said.
On Kaua'i, an autopsy determined that a camper died of massive internal injuries suffered when a tree, toppled by the wind, landed on his campsite.
Michael Souza, 36, also known as Michael Larson, had been camping off Ka'apuni Road near a 60-foot Norfolk Island pine. The tree snapped off 20 feet above the ground. He was found by two motorcycle riders.
A family member said he was camping but was not homeless, as the first report from Kaua'i police indicated.
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau writer Jan TenBruggencate contributed to this report. Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.
