Severe erosion is seen in a field after Hurricane Lala.

Severe storm damage from Hurricane Lala has cut off some coffee farms in the rural southern part of the island of Hawaii, washing away crops and destroying roads and bridges just as farmers were about to head into harvest season. Separate from the Kona coffee region, Kau has built a reputation for coffee of its own.

But the impacts extend beyond the farms. Washed-out roads and bridges had left communities in the area with no access out of town. Some residents are still facing power and water outages, reliant on deliveries for supplies.

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For Kau’s coffee industry, the full extent of the losses is still emerging. Some in the industry are reporting uprooted coffee trees, power outages, water disruptions and impassable roads.

“Thousands of trees are down, a lot of it just washed away completely, and the road is completely destroyed,” Alla Kostenko, co-owner of A Coffee Farm, told SFGATE. She lives on her farm above Pahala.

On A Coffee Farm’s property in Pahala, a road is covered with branches next to storm-damaged coffee trees.

Pahala was initially cut off from the rest of the island by highway closures in both directions after the storm due to severe damage to the highway and bridges, but highway access to Hilo has been restored. The roads into Pahala’s main town were also impassable until the local community came together to create a path for vehicles, Kostenko said.

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Once she made it into town, Kostenko saw the “Salvation Army and helicopters flying and bringing in some supplies, because there are communities here that are still........

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