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Tourists back to paradise as Hawaii area struggles

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His generator whirring at top speed, Gene Lamkin used rain captured from Tropical Storm Iselle to wash his hair as he and thousands of others in a rural swath of the Big Island remained in the dark and unable to traverse roads blocked by toppled trees. It was a far cry from the way tourists in popular parts of Hawaii spent their Saturday – sunbathing, kayaking and otherwise back to paradise despite an overcast sky.

“It’s like camping right now,” Lamkin said from a cellphone he charged using a generator after his electricity failed at 8:30 pm on Thursday. “We’re using water from our catchment system to bathe ourselves, shampoo our hair – trying to remain in a civilized manner.”

Lamkin knows life in the isolated, jungle-like Puna region, where unpaved roads of volcanic rock are not maintained by the county, means being prepared for the worst. The region, home to about 40,000 people, has spent a day and a half without electricity as Hurricane Julio lingered hundreds of miles off the coast. The storm was expected to pass roughly 160 miles northeast of the islands at its closest point early Sunday and linger near the state into Monday.

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