A Waimanalo man’s act of bravery is being credited for saving a life during Friday night’s storm.

A woman found herself trapped as the flood waters rose around her, but a neighbor jumped into action to help her.

Kalei Naipo said the flood waters seemed to go away as quickly as they came.

“As I reached around here it got to about four feet and as you can see, it kind of tapers down,” Naipo said.

Naipo lives near the Waimanalo stream. He was watching the water rise outside his home when he got a phone call for help.

His neighbor’s mother was trapped inside a bus that she was temporarily living in, just around the corner from his house.

Naipo went to find her.

“I’m yelling out for aunty, just yelling for her. I really couldn’t hear anything because of the wind the rain. All I could see was the lights from her bus and as I got closer I could hear the knocking on the window,” Naipo said. 

Naipo told KHON2 the water was up to the windshield when he finally reached the bus.

He struggled to move a wood platform that had floated up and blocked the bus door.

“I could tell aunty was already kind of frantic, very frightened. I think I was more afraid for aunty because she’s a little bit fragile,” Naipo said.

Finally – after a few frantic moments – Naipo was able to move the platform and pried open the bus doors. He guided the woman and her dog safely back to his house.

Residents in the area are calling him a hero but Naipo said he just did what he hoped others would do for him.

“I thought of her as if she was my family. You know because we were raised that way to help people no matter what,” he said.

The woman and her dog are ok but we’re told several vehicles in the area were flooded out and some farm animals were also lost.