Remembering Hurricane Iniki 20 years later Hurricanes are fairly
rare in Hawaii, but few of them have hit there in the past. One
of them was Hurricane Iniki on September 11, 1992. It has been
two decades since Iniki slammed Kauai, which is one of the
Hawaiian Islands. This powerful hurricane struck Hawaii just
weeks after Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida and Louisiana.
In addition, Iniki had caused significant impact to the state of
Hawaii, especially on Kauai. Since Iniki, however, no hurricanes
have hit Hawaii. Nonetheless, Hawaii should still be fully
prepared for these storms in the future, and I feel that Iniki
is one of the infamous hurricanes to never forget. Figure 1.
Satellite image of Hurricane Iniki making landfall on the island
of Kauai. Image courtesy of NOAA. Like many hurricanes, Iniki,
which is Hawaiian for sharp and piercing wind, had probably
originated from a tropical wave that exited off the west coast
of Africa on August 18, 1992, and the National Hurricane Center
(NHC) began to track