Lala did not hit Hawaiʻi all at once. Three separate instrument networks — anemometers, rain gauges, and the electric utilities' own customer counts — each recorded their peak at a different time on each island.
Stage in feet is not comparable between gauges — it is measured from an arbitrary local datum, so 22 ft on one stream and 8 ft on another say nothing about which flooded. Divided by each gauge's own minor flood stage, they compare directly, and the near-misses become visible.
Orographic lift is the standard explanation for Hawaiʻi rainfall: air pushed up a mountain cools and drops its water. If that were the whole story, every panel below would slope the same way.
The runoff coefficient — water out divided by rain in, over the same hours. It is the number that explains a lag instead of just reporting one: a basin that sheds almost everything it receives responds fast and hard.
The gap between the hour the rain peaked over a basin and the hour its stream peaked — the warning you actually get once it stops raining.