The U.S. Navy has started moving its Pearl Harbor fleet out of Hurricane Lane’s way as Hawaii braces itself for the oncoming storm.
Rear Adm. Brian Fort, commander, Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, announced Wednesday on Facebook that all U.S. Navy ships and submarines based in Hawaii that were not undergoing maintenance would be moved from the harbor and repositioned so that they could help respond after the storm, should the need arise.
Fort said that moving the fleet would allow the ships “enough time to transit safely out of the path of the storm."
The ships and submarines will remain at sea until the threat from the storm subsides while all Hawaii-based Navy aircraft are secured in hangars or flown to other airfields to avoid the effects of the hurricane.
Hawaii residents are rushing to stores to stock up on bottled water, ramen, toilet paper and other supplies as they face the threat of heavy rain, flash flooding and high surf as the storm continued to churn toward the state.
On Tuesday night, the National Weather Service announced Hurricane Lane had become a Category 5 hurricane.
Currently, Lane is a Category 4 hurricane but AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski said Thursday that it still has the potential of “bringing the state of Hawaii serious and perhaps record damage.”
He added that the storm's weakening was expected to be slow at first but that “Lane will remain a very powerful and very dangerous hurricane as it approaches the Hawaiian Islands.”
All Hawaii Island and Maui County public schools and offices were shuttered on Wednesday in preparation for the storm, the Hawaii State Department of Education said.
An emergency proclamation signed by Hawaii Gov. David Ige on Tuesday declared that the counties of Hawa'i, Maui, Kalawao, Kauai, and the city and county of Honolulu were disaster areas.
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