Neighbors have stepped up to provide food, shelter, support and even a makeshift “bridge of aloha” out of bamboo for residents in need following historic flooding in Haiku on March 8.

About 24 homes and properties reported damaged to some degree, according to Maui County Mayor Michael Victorino, and impacted residents have been seeking funding or refuge ever since.

In the 16 years that Keala and Mike Storm have lived in their Haiku home off Five Corners, they’ve never seen water rise that high over the bridge and streets.

“It went from being a foot overflowing — we use our bridge as like a guide because it’s happened before where it’s gone over and flooded — and within 10 minutes I had gone outside and the water had risen 3 or 4 feet, which has never happened,” Keala Storm told The Maui News on Friday. “So I screamed to my husband, ‘Get out here,’ and we immediately decided to leave.”

The couple and their three children, ages 11, 13 and 16, couldn’t drive away since the creek had already overflowed, so they used an escape route behind the house.

The family quickly grabbed a few belongings and climbed up a ladder off their property.

“Once we hit high ground, we felt safe but we weren’t even sure if we’d see our house again,” Storm said. “We thought our car was just going to start floating away. . . . It was very traumatic in the moment.”

She explained how they walked briefly over to Five Corners and hung out under a shelter, waiting for a friend to come pick them up. However, due to road closures, they were taken in by a neighbor instead.

While the Storms assessed the property damage the following day, they spent most of the week at their neighbor’s until their home was deemed safe.

With constant rains in Haiku last week, the creek overflowed again on Thursday, she said, leaving them “on edge,” though they’ve tried to resume life as best they can.

“We’ve just been going back and forth,” she said. “The kids are trying to do Zoom homework with spotty Wi-Fi, I was trying to work, and my husband has not gone back to work because he told them he needed time off to get things in order.”

A GoFundMe was created to cover repairs needed for the car, carport and property, she said.

The biggest expenses have been renting excavating equipment to remove the blockage in the creek, fixing the driveway and other property damage.

“We’ve put some gravel back in our driveway. It was washed away, so we’re able to drive in and out, so we’re finally back in recovery,” she said. “Now we’re finding that there’s tons and tons of gravel in the creek that we’re trying to remove today.”

Storm said that “everything worked out well in the end” and noted how her family is now more prepared for any future flooding and remains vigilant on the stream’s water level.

She added that they are also “very grateful” to all who have contributed so far to their fundraising goal of $10,000, as well as those who quickly offered shelter, support, food and kindness within the first 24 hours of the flood.

“It was amazing, even the phone call and text made all the difference,” she said. “I don’t think we would have been recovering as quickly and as well without all the support. . . . Our community really came through. I never realized Haiku was so capable and it really is, so we’re feeling the love, truly.”

Generosity was also prevalent last week when a Pukalani man helped build a makeshift bamboo bridge to give residents temporary river crossing onto Sylvia Cenzano’s 9.3-acre farmland.

Cenzano said that the flooding not only destroyed the bridge but swept away the property water supply line, five cars, one of the two homes and a steel storage unit.

“Until we got our waterline reconnected, we were carrying buckets of stream water up up the hill just so we could flush the toilets and wash our dishes, but you know, I look on the bright side – it was a free workout,” said Cenzano on Friday morning. “There is a lot to recover from. The sustained damage to this property is huge and with no insurance, we’re just going to have to get more creative than before.”

“Creative” is one way to describe the community’s efforts to help install the temporary bridge after residents were stuck on the other side of the overflowing streambed.

Within four hours on the Saturday following the flood, Barry Koch and his friend chainsawed nearby bamboo stalks, dragged them over, laid them across the water and tied up bamboo railings, Cenzano said.

“It’s really incredible what they did,” she said.

While they went to work that afternoon, an unidentified neighbor “just showed up” to help, she added.

“They didn’t sit around scratching their heads talking about it, they just came to do it and they did,” she said. “It’s amazing.”

When the water was knee-deep and low enough to cross by foot earlier that week, Cenzano said that she and the other residents took advantage, but it was still too treacherous for her 87-year-old mother, who had back surgery in November.

Now that there’s the bamboo bridge, “we need to build up her flexibility and her strength” in order for Cenzano’s mother to be able to cross safely in time for medical appointments scheduled at the end of the month.

“The bridge is like, wavering, it’s long pieces of bamboo,” she explained. “For us it’s fun, like ‘Wow, this is cool,’ but we cross very cautiously, but for her, it’s going to be a little scary because she doesn’t have the mobility.”

While Cenzano estimates that the total losses caused by the flood is about $500,000, which includes “the house, two foot bridges, five vehicles, including our farm truck, and our 20-feet steel shipping container full of our supplies and tools and stuff,” she said that the GoFundMe is mainly to raise money for a permanent bridge and the cost of labor.

As of Sunday afternoon, nearly $26,000 of the $50,000 requested had been donated.

Repairs are also needed because the land is used to run her nonprofit Malamalama Sustainability Center, which teaches skills in culture, agriculture and environment, health and wellness, business and marketing, life skills and spirituality.

“It’s not just about me and my family and the community here. The reason for being here on this property was for a training center with the focus on college-age youth and single moms and single women,” she said. “The goal is to help and empower the youth, help them to find their passions if they’re not already aware of them and help them build a career based on that.”

Meanwhile, Makawao resident Nicole Huguenin is organizing a fundraiser for $12,000 on behalf of Ashlar McNeil, owner of Maui Grown Organics, whose home was hit by a large falling tree and then swept away in the Haiku floods.

The house and property “was a large part of the organic gardens that supply her business,” Huguenin wrote. The farm also serves as an animal sanctuary for more than 100 rescues.

Last week, McNeil wrote on her Instagram that she is “so grateful to be alive and generally healthy (despite all the moldy cleanup!).”

After the flood washed away the home she built along with her belongings, McNeil is “waiting it out in the market van, just for now hopefully,” according to her post.

“But please, don’t give unless you can, because the last thing I want to do is drain someone else of much-needed resources,” she wrote on Instagram. “We are in this together (and) will make it through!”

* Dakota Grossman can be reached at dgrossman@mauinews.com.