Loading ...Well it’s all over the national news now. Madam Pele is the Hawaiian Volcano goddess, and all who live on the slopes of the Big Island volcano know that this is Pele’s land, and she can return at any time to take it back and cover it again with lava. The little village of Pahoa looks like it will be cut in half by the advancing finger of lava coming down the slope.
http://www.kitv.com/news/lava-flow-consumes-structure/29399254
Years ago when I lived there I engineered some video coverage when the southward flow from Pu’u O’o vent flowed through the village of Kalapana on the southeast coast. That flow covered the southern shoreline highway known as “Chain of Craters Road” through the Hawaii Volcanos National Park area. That southern flow is now embedded under the surface in a flowing Lava tube and emptying into the ocean at Kalapana.
Now this same active crater has sent a finger of lava eastward to Pahoa. As it advances through the village it will cut the main access highway to the entire southeast corner of the Big Island, and thousands of homes and residences will be isolated and trapped between two lava flows. They have carved a new access road around the east coastal area jungle to serve the area, but this presumes the lava flow will stop before reaching the east coast of the island. If the lava makes it to the ocean, the entire southeast corner of the island is isolated between two lava flows.
The national park has turned “Chain of Craters road” back over to the county and they have begun to carve out a road where the old road was covered by lava along the southern coastline years ago. The only problem is… the road must cross over an actively flowing, subsurface lava tube. There is talk of constructing a steel bridge over this hot lava tube area for structural support in the event the crust breaks, so no cars will fall into hot lava. I don’ t believe this has ever been done or even proposed before…. anywhere.
This area was the cheapest area to buy land and housing on the island. I once considered it, but my local friends were smart enough and dissuaded me. Then I moved back to the mainland, anyway. We can all watch now as a little bit of Hawaiian history is burned, and reborn as the newest land on earth.
