Margaret Cabudol has volunteered at enough Red Cross shelters to know that there are no true safe havens in Ka'u, especially when high winds — like the ones that reportedly generated a dust devil-like twister there — start blowing.

She and her son-in-law had spent Saturday morning trying to clear her yard of anything the weekend's high winds might turn into a projectile. But when she heard the "funny, creepy ripping sound" in the distance, she knew something serious was amiss.

From the breezeway of her Puahala Street home, she looked down the road to Ka'u High School just in time to see an 80-foot section of corrugated-iron roof from the main building flying above the trees.

"I started yelling for everybody to get in the house," she said. "I didn't know if that thing was going to fly over and hit us. Everybody was yelling to get inside, but if something like this happens — and it's never happened here before — where can you go? There is no safe place in Ka'u."

The National Weather Service could not confirm numerous eyewitness reports of the dust devil. But area residents know that, whatever it was, it was powerful.

"(The roof) was flying in the air, at least 100 feet up," said Clyde Silva, 55, who lives two blocks away from the school on 'Ilima Street. "It was just spinning around like paper."

The roof landed about 100 yards away on an adjacent field, Silva said.

Police said no injuries were reported.

"Thank God there was no school," Silva said.

Hawai'i Fire Department units and volunteers assisted school officials in removing items from the building.

The National Weather Service has extended a high wind advisory for all islands (except summit areas of the Big Island) through 6 p.m. today.

The advisory warns of easterly winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 50 miles per hour.

The service said the highest wind speeds will occur in valleys, over ridges and around headlands, especially on the Leeward sides of islands.

The wind is being generated by a high-pressure system to the north-northwest. Gusts as strong as 60 miles per hour have been reported in Kawaihae on the Big Island, and 47 miles per hour on O'ahu.