Flash Flood River Surfing “Biggest Waimea in Years” (Video)

Originally posted on SURFER | By Dashel Pierson | Last updated Feb 10, 2025 6:48 PM ET

It’s been a rainy, blustery, victory-at-sea couple days (weeks?) on the North Shore of Oahu. Conditions were so stormy, that the World Surf League’s kickoff event for the 2025 Championship Tour season – the Lexus Pipe Pro – was called off for multiple days during the waiting period.

There’s also been reports of flash floods.

Like at Waimea Bay, where the waterfall, a 3.5 hike through the valley and a popular tourist destination, erupted in a torrent of water. But with all that water flowing through the valley, that had to make its way to the ocean eventually. And that meant a potentially epic surf session at the North Shore’s favorite, most hectic novelty wave. So, weird wave specialist, Jamie O’Brien, suited up.

We’ve seen glimmers of the recent session that went down at the Waimea Bay river wave, namely from world champion and Olympic gold medalist, Italo Ferreira. But we’ve yet to see footage from the entire event. Until now. As expected, JOB dropped a full video documenting it.

“It’s code brown at Waimea river right now,” JOB says on his way to the spot. “It’s 6.27 cubic feet of water. Whatever is happening right now. The amount of water that’s coming down right now, this is psycho. This is like the Eddie Aikau edition of the river. Best case scenario, super psycho sonic moments about to happen. This thing is swelling. It’s full. It’s major. I’m tripping.”

If you’ll recall, it was at the Waimea river that JOB “almost died” in perhaps the biggest, scariest conditions that’s ever been surfed. “I don’t even know where I am,” he said. “I pop up in the middle of Waimea Bay, 300 yards out in the middle of the ocean and the waves are 15 feet. Not a good idea.”

This time, it wasn’t as deadly.

“Honestly, probably some of the biggest waves I’ve ever seen at Waimea river went down tonight,” JOB recapped. “I was getting sucked over the falls. And I was like, ‘I might die.’ It was relentless. The river kept going and going and going. But I watched some incredible waves go down.”

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

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