# They don't have floods in Hawaii? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 13, 2001, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251 "2001-02-13T03:14:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/1 "2001-02-13T03:14:10Z")
A poster on another [board](http://thebruces.stormbirds.org/forum/showthread.php?postid=31124#post31124) claims that they don’t have floods in Hawaii. He says: > [@](#): > > \*\*Hurricanes don’t cause flooding on the islands due to the water flow channels dug out from centuries of nearly constant rainfall. Plus the fact that there is little real soil and that that does exist is extremely porous. The final factor, which precludes flooding, is that there isn’t enough landmass for great volumes of water to accumulate to cause a flood. \*\* Is he right? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/2 "2001-02-13T03:21:28Z")
WAG: Hawaii is volcanic islands, so it wouldn’t surprise me if water just ran downhill into the ocean. There aren’t any real big rivers to speak of, either. Nor are there any giant valleys which can fill up. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/3 "2001-02-13T03:24:48Z")
Aren’t the Hawiian islands actually the tops of huge hunker-toad volcanoes? If so, I could imagine that even cats-and-dogs type rain would just cascade down the constant grade & into the ocean. Also, don’t volcanoes have lots of little channels & tunnels running underground that would provide, essentially, a huge drainage system? Oh, **Geobabe** where are you?? ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/4 "2001-02-13T03:31:15Z")
This is technically known as “a crock of shit”. Exhibit A: [Floods That Have Occurred in Hawaii](http://www.pdc.org/pdc/pub/FloodHistory.html) Exhibit B: [The FEMA page for the Big Island Flood of 2000](http://www.fema.gov/diz00/d1348.htm) ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/5 "2001-02-13T03:38:35Z")
Thanks. This, by the way, is the 20,000th GQ thread. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/6 "2001-02-13T06:57:18Z")
For severe rainfall to run off the islands and do no flooding damage, the islands would have to be shaped like Hershey’s Kisses, and they’re not. Many areas are flat and/or just don’t drain well. ---
**Author:** ![Geobabe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/geobabe/32/3908_2.png) [@Geobabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geobabe)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/7 "2001-02-13T07:00:52Z")
Oh dear lord, I poke my head in here and there they are throwing my name around… Looks like **SmackFu** got it pretty well covered. My area of expertise isn’t really island fluvial systems anyway. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/8 "2001-02-13T12:11:55Z")
\*\*\*They don’t have floods in Hawaii? \*\*\* There’s some unfortunate people on the big island of Hawaii that were forced from their homes by a flood of _lava_. And it being hotter than 451[sup]o[/sup]F, there wasn’t anything left of their home later. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2001, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/9 "2001-02-13T16:33:25Z")
A lot of hawaii is lava base, water runs down it mighty fast. Just the other day my brother there got 10" of rain in one day. One time he had a flood & found his file cabinet on the seashore. ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2001, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-dont-have-floods-in-hawaii/54251/10 "2001-02-14T19:15:53Z")
Oh, you guys just HAVE to read the subsequent posts on that other board. **Ghoti** (which is pronounced “fish”) is now claiming he was referring to floods of Biblical proportions. (He’s a fundamentalist Christian.) Since massive, catastrophic floods don’t occur there, he still says it never floods in Hawaii. (He’s trying to argue that since every culture has a flood myth, including Hawaiians, they must be referring to Noah and the Ark.)