‘She could’ve died’: Kauai woman shares how she narrowly survived Hurricane Lowell

KAUAI (HawaiiNewsNow) – A Kauai woman is grateful to be alive after she was trapped in her North Shore home during Hurricane Lowell.

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Wainiha resident Adriana Carril recalled the moments the storm’s whipping winds sent a large Albizia tree crashing down on her house, which sat on stilts, and when flood waters rushed below it.

Alone and with limited sight at the powerless, riverside house, Carril thought the house shaking on its loosened foundation was the last thing she would hear.

“I was crying, I was praying, I didn’t know what to do. I was saying, ‘oh my god, I’m so scared.’ I don’t know what to do. It was very scary. It was so dark,” Carril recounted. “I have nowhere to go, but the house is going back and forth like this. My whole room collapsed.”

Worried the water would sweep away the swaying house and her with it, Carril climbed into her neighbor’s home right next door, which was also flooding, and floated on a bed.

“It was dark water underneath, and I sat there with my dogs, my two dogs, and I kind of felt safe,” Carril shared.

Carril hunkered there until 3 a.m., when she said the water receded.

“She could’ve died. It was that close, so it was an emotional moment, for sure,” Carril’s son Tyler Newton said.

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Newton was on the other side of the North Shore and could not get to his mother because roads were blocked by downed trees.

As soon as Newton found some cleared roadways, he launched his jet ski from Kalihiwai and made it to Wainiha.

“I passed someone on the road, said, ‘your mom’s okay, but a tree fell on the house, I just started running up the road. And when I got there, basically crying, because the house was destroyed,” Newton said.

After seeing the destruction, Newton was shocked to see his mom was unharmed.

“Man, thank god, seriously, it was quite the moment for sure,” Newton added.

Newton’s younger brother Dustin Satz added, “Half of the things we own are gone. What matters most is my mom’s okay.”

Carril not only lost her home to Lowell, but her car as well, and she came away with an important lesson.

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“I’ll evacuate earlier. One of the lessons,” Carril said.

If you would like to help Carril rebuild, a GoFundMe can be found here.