How about 30-plus inches of rain in 21 days and 800-foot waterfall whose runoff goes right through your backyard?!

OK, admittedly, when it comes to blogging for business, I’m not really a big fan of small, frequent posts. That’s fine when it matches your style and flows well with the way you work and compliments the way your company operates. Deborah and I however, both have styles that make longer, more educational articles and topical series flow easy.

Now that approach usually works well for us no matter what our commitments are for product creation, strategic partnering, or traveling to the mainland to research new real estate investments. But when weather like we’ve been hit with during March happens, even with an average posting frequency of 3-4 days per week on the blogs we use for business and marketing — it’s just not possible to keep up.

So since posting here at Advanced Business Blogging has suffered during March, I figured I’d share a few photos from our town on the North Shore of Hawaii over the past three weeks. They don’t do any real justice to the size, majesty, and in this case — run off potential of the mountains.

The height of the mountains here makes the size of the falls decieving on this shot. The main waterfall runs at about 30-40 feet across and about five feet deep in normal rains. The volume at the time of this shot was roughly double that. BTW - this waterfall has over a 1000-foot drop!

This is a view of the same valley, north west (right) side. You can see three waterfalls running. To give you scale, all are about 20-25 feet across.

Hawaii? Bad weather? Yes, Hawaii does get rain. And on the North Shores of all five of the main islands — get lots! And it can be very localized. For instance, in our town we got over 30-inches of rain in the past 21-days! Storm after storm came through with little rest in between.

One storm was such a heavy rain producer when it got stuck over the Ko’olau Mountains that it produced an average of 3-inches per hour for more than 4-hours!

One runoff area at a house in town. This is the type of water feature no one wants this close to their house.

All the water from the waterfall in the first shot up above needed to go somewhere. Well, here it is. Over 50-feet of the yard was swept away from this house in less than six-hours! (The house in front of it - not so lucky. It came tumbling down, and had the military out here watching to make sure the rest of it didn’t fall in the stream and take out the bridge.)

With mountain peaks jutting 2,300 feet into the sky in less than 3/4-mile from the ocean — there’s not really any place for the water to disperse. That gives us pluses, and minuses. The pluses are the 49 waterfalls in our town. It’s simply awesome to behold!

Simply breath-taking!

But quite a few of those waterfalls can do a lot of damage because of their locations relative to residential areas. One of the larger waterfalls in town (with two smaller siblings) push their water runoff right through a small valley behind our house and it flows right across the rear part of our property.

Even with clouds, torrential rains, and flooding — you can see why ABC’s hit show “Lost” films in our town regularly. And why over 50 feature films (including Jurassic Park, Wind Talkers, Fifty First Dates, and Mighty Joe Young) were all filmed here.

This is a shot of the east side entrance to Kaaawa Valley. Those six white lines coming down the face of the mountains don’t look like much, until you realize that these mountains shoot 2,300 feet straight up in less than a half mile from the ocean. Each of those “little white lines” is between 15-25 feet wide running 4-6 feet deep!

At one point, two weeks ago, there was a flash surge of water and the stream bed volume (which was already running at full capacity about 7-feet across and up to 3-feet deep) suddenly doubled. That blew open a raised support wall at an elbow in the stream bed about 100-yards behind the house and all that water came rushing right down directly towards our home!

It was pretty scary for a few hours there as Deb and I along with a few of our great neighbors worked quickly to temporarily rebuild that support wall. I’ve spent nearly 40-hours during the last three weeks with neighbors, and with friends, to rebuild the stream bed from that flash flood and keep the water going where it was supposed to flow — into the ocean!

Deborah related this experience to business, in our weekly column, that was supposed to be titled, Lessons from the Flood that Could Save Your Business (but the Star Bulletin newspaper editors had their way… and well - you know how that goes.)

Unfortunately, for residents on the island of Kauai, haven’t been as lucky during this month. Seven people have died or are missing (assumed to be swept out to sea) when a dam broke during the middle of the night sending a 40-foot high wall of water down a residential area. If you’re the praying type, please keep their families in prayer.

Two of the people missing were supposed to be married last weekend. The woman was pregnant, and to top it all off, their families flew in the morning after the dam broke, not knowing what had happened the night before, expecting to attend their wedding, and instead attended a memorial.

All in all though, we’ve been thanking God for protecting our neighborhood and town, keeping families safe. Thankful that there was relatively no damage done to our home during these storms. And we’re thankful that, even though there was a lot of damage to some of the homes ruined from the flooding in our town — no one was seriously injured or killed here on Oahu.

What’s a mess for some…

… was fun for others!

The adults and kids alike, pretty much take it all in stride and make the best of it. Even I have to admit, it’s been refreshing to be working hard out in the weather. Coming in at the end of a long day physically exhausted is strangely rewarding. That may sound funny, but that’s what happens I guess, when you live in Hawaii. Copyright © RPM Success Group Inc. 2002-2006. Other bloggers and journalists are allowed to excerpt and link to posts (as is common with bloggers,) as full credit/attribution is given to AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com and RPM Success Group Inc.

Learn how to unleash the maximum marketing power of business blogs, podcasts, and RSS (in any industry, profession, or niche) with Marketing With Business Blogs™.

John-Paul Micek is a published author and weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin. As a Click-and-Mortar Business Coach he helps small business owners integrate offline and online marketing strategies for rapid, reliable business growth. You can reach J.P. directly via [commun