Kauai man fought for his life during hours-long ordeal as river swept away home

When Hurricane Lowell moved past Kauai the night of Sept. 7, it left a path of destruction. Across the island, homes and businesses were flooded and damaged, debris and flooding made roads impassable, and electricity was knocked out for tens of thousands of residents. 

On the North Shore in Wainiha, just past Hanalei, the Wainiha River became especially dangerous as it rose dramatically, causing significant flooding. The river’s flow almost doubled in less than two hours, from about 51,000 gallons per second at 7 p.m. to nearly 90,000 gallons per second by 8:50 p.m. Hawaii time, a U.S. Geological Survey gauge recorded. 

For 47-year-old Wainiha resident Trent Parke, whose property bordered the Wainiha River, the night became an eight-hour fight to stay alive.

“I was just thinking, I’m going to live. I’m going to figure it out,” Parke told SFGATE over the phone. “I was thinking, you know, I’m going to figure it out.” 

Parke had been preparing his property days before Lowell arrived, moving what he could to higher ground so it wouldn’t flood.

On Sept. 7, Kauai County emergency officials sent out an alert encouraging voluntary evacuation for residents in oceanfront properties. No other evacuation notices were sent. 

Parke’s property borders the river but is not on the ocean. Still, he never planned to stay through the storm. Before dark, he parked his truck on higher ground and went to shut down his off-grid power system, which he had forgotten to turn off. He had pulled on a wetsuit top and tucked his phone and keys into a plastic bag beneath it before starting back to his truck around 7:30 p.m.

That was when the river suddenly surged.

“I was walking on the far side of my property to get out, and it was just like about a 3-foot difference of water,” he said. “At that point, I had to swim back to my house because it was the only way to go.”

Parke swam back to his house and climbed over the railing onto the deck, about 8 feet above the ground, hoping the water would recede enough for him to escape. Instead, it continued rising. He climbed higher, eventually reaching the roof of the deck, roughly 16 feet above ground, as massive trees from upstream began rushing past him in the floodwaters. 

Then pieces of his property began breaking away. He watched the raging water rip the staircase off his deck, followed by his tool shed. 

“I know at this point, I’m going to be diving in for a swim soon. I am now looking down at my art studio. Water just keeps rising faster and faster,” he said.

Soon, his art studio, a separate structure, broke loose, carried away by the river. Massive trees and logs piled up against his home beneath him, and he could see more coming. Looking for somewhere he could reach if the structure gave way, Parke focused on a thick group of hau bush on higher ground. Hau is a tree that spreads horizontally, creating a dense thicket, and can grow to a height of 13 to 33 feet.

When two trees slammed into the house and it began to break loose, Parke jumped into the raging river in the dark. 

“When I hit the water, I knew I had to swim as hard as I could in any chance to hit that section of hau bush. In a blur, I was there and I got a hold of one of the thicker branches,” he said. By then, he said he was carried into a neighbor’s property. 

From the hau, he watched the house he had built float past him. As the water continued to rise, the hau around him began to break loose. 

Parke was forced back into the river. The current swept him downstream, where a log struck him in the back and head, casting him underwater. When he surfaced, Parke said he was disoriented, but was able to grab onto another hau branch and climb up the tree. 

Once he was in a relatively stable place among the branches, he realized his best chance for survival was to stay where he was. 

“I knew it was early in the night, and the worst of the storm was hours away. The tide is rising ‘til 1:30a.m., and the peak of the storm was about 3:00am. I had to wait until daylight light to actually be able to see. It was about 10pm at this point, it was going to be a long night,” Parke later told SFGATE in an email. 

He remained there until 4 a.m., engulfed in darkness amid the chaos of wind and rain. The river rushed past him, while trees continued to fly by throughout the night. At times, half his body was submerged, and he fought hypothermia by moving as much as he could to keep the blood flowing.

“It was a complete mental game of thoughts for hours,” he said. “I just kept thinking, I can’t go like this.” There was no cell service, so he couldn’t call for help. He took comfort from a few faint lights in the distance that he called “lights of hope,” until they faded. Then he tried, as he put it, “to remove yourself from the situation mentally.”

At around 4 a.m., Parke made a break for land, jumping back into the overflowing river. He managed to grab the bank and pull himself onto the road, where he said he ran into four other people who had escaped deep water on the other side of a bridge. He used his cellphone light to help them reach safety. When he reached his truck, he found it had flooded, but the water had receded enough for him to climb inside and sleep.

When he woke around 7:30 a.m., he walked back to his property and found his home. It had landed about 30 to 50 yards downstream onto another property. The flood had also left piles of trees and logs. 

“I didn’t think I was going to live through the whole thing with all the decisions I had to make,” Parke said. “And you know when I got down there and I saw like the dam of logs and how much, I mean this pile of logs is like 15 to 20 feet high, like I looked at it, nobody lives through that. … I’ve had a really hard time with that.”

Days later, authorities are still assessing the toll in Wainiha. On Sept. 11, the body of a 59-year-old man was found near the area of severe flooding. The Kauai Police Department said an autopsy is still pending. 

Now seven days since Lowell passed Kauai, the recovery is only beginning. Some parts of the North Shore continue to be without power as of Sunday. 

For now, Parke said much of his attention is on helping other people in Wainiha. He has been clearing debris, chain sawing logs and helping neighbors with cleanup.

“My plan, like my plans right now, is just help everybody I can out there with others,” he said. “When I get around to my stuff, you know, just try to do what I can.” 

A friend also created a GoFundMe for Parke, who said he lost virtually everything on his property, to help with shelter, basic necessities and rebuilding.

But the damage extended throughout the Wainiha community. Papa Moku and Nancy Chandler say their home was flooded and badly damaged and is no longer livable, leaving them facing cleaning, repairs and replacement of belongings. Another fundraiser says a Wainiha family lost belongings when their home flooded.

Meanwhile, Parke is also still processing what he survived.

“I don’t know why I survived the night, have been struck with why I did. I feel remorse knowing some did not,” Parke told SFGATE in an email. “Moving forward I am a forever changed person.”