08/19/2026
Hurricane Lala tested us this week, and Maili Plantation came through it because the whole community pulled together. We're not just a property, we're home to twenty people across our four units, plus fourteen dogs and one very large turtle, and everyone pitched in to prepare and then to clean up together once the storm passed.
The storm hit hard. A huge kiawe tree came down right on top of Unit D, the home we live in ourselves, tearing out our new farm fence and snagging a utility guy wire, which meant we couldn't even touch the tree until Hawaiian Electric confirmed the pole was safe. The same wind tore the roof clean off the wheelchair access structure at Unit A. We lost power for over a day and ran the property off a generator and a backup battery.
Then there were the mangoes. We have two huge mango trees on the property, one at Unit A and one at Unit C, and Lala's wind knocked nearly the entire crop to the ground. Over five hundred mangoes ended up on the ground, and the community came together to pick them all up, sort through them, and give them away rather than let them go to waste.
Once the storm passed we spent the next day cutting up the tree, repairing our own roof, and fixing the wheelchair ramp roof at Unit A too. It's the kind of week that reminds you this isn't a renovation show. It's a working farm and a real community, and when something breaks, we fix it together.
Full video of the prep, the damage, and the repair is up on our YouTube channel now, link in the comments.
