USA TODAY International Edition
Lava, fires disrupt life around Kilauea volcano
PAHOA, Hawaii – Weary residents struggled Monday to return to normal despite a destructive lava flow that shows no signs of slowing down as it sets homes ablaze and alters the geography of this idyllic area.
Elsewhere on the Big Island, life went on as usual.
Lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano through the Leilani Estates neighborhood has destroyed at least 26 homes, along with power lines. It’s covered many streets with a rock-hard flow that’s up to 10 feet deep in places and still throwing off more heat than a college-town pizza oven on a Friday night.
The lava is escaping from 10 vents or fissures that have opened beneath the neighborhood since last week, flinging molten rock more than 200 feet in the air and oozing over everything it encounters. A magnitude-6.9 earthquake — Hawaii’s largest in more than 40 years — struck the area Friday.
About 1,700 people remain evacuated from the area and faced the start of the workweek with a mix of hope and resignation. Hundreds use Red Cross shelter facilities to sleep, bathe and eat, to gather with neighbors to trade rumors — and to wait for the volcano Goddess Pele to calm.
“This ain’t normal for none of us,” said evacuee Donovan Lease as he helped move donations at the shelter Sunday night. “But everyone is trying to make the best of it.”
A tiny sense of normalcy is returning to the area, thanks to the start of schools Monday and the reopening of nearby Volcanoes National Park. For the majority of Big Island residents, the lava flows are far from their first concern.
Pahoa isn’t on the island’s main tourist route, although it draws visitors who for years have walked out onto a nearby lava flow to watch smaller vents ooze liquid rock.
In Hilo, about 35 miles away, life continues normally with little worry about the flows, which gravity dictates will pour into the ocean before they ever get close. The Big Island is home to about 200,000 residents and draws nearly 9 million tourists annually to marvel — briefly — at the raw power of the volcanoes.
To some outsiders, the idea of making your home on such an island seems a bit ridiculous. But just as Wisconsinites have grown accustomed to the cold and Kansans live with the summer threat of tornadoes, Hawaiians generally accept the risk. A big driver is the price of land: A plot for an off-the-grid home might cost just $7,500.
Sunday night, evacuee Dana Donovan worried about the fate of her land and whether the flowing lava would permanently block her access. Donovan dismantled her solar panels and backup batteries before she left. She sold her catchment basin, which off-grid residents use to capture rainwater for bathing.
“I’m so sad for the people who didn’t get that chance,” she said.
Donovan was supposed to go to work Monday at a tour-guiding company, but things are on hold because of road closures, she said.
Just outside the evacuation zone, locals poured through a recovery center staffed with women stuffing sandwiches into bags for evacuees. “We never know what tomorrow will bring,” said Vaaiga Pola-Wilson, who grew up in the area. “Only God knows that.”