Dispatches from Volcano: Kīlauea Update, Tuesday, June 19, 2018, Complacent? Hope not!!!

Hūi!

And the sunʻs up. That golden light, filtered through noe uahi. I have a sundial in my hale. A window, high on the living room wall, above the front door. Sun comes up, shadows are cast. In case we forget what season weʻre in, the edge of the windowshadow is a guide. And that sunrise shadow thing may stem from going early Mass when I was small. I would watch the shadow move across the statued altar-wall of Our Lady of Lourdes in Honokaʻa. Maybe I was bored because I couldnʻt understand Latin. Remember?

Yesterday was a BobbyFavorite in ma uka ahupuaʻa Keaʻau. Hot. Sunny. Clear. Hang clothes on the line outside and they dry. Crisp, kinda scratchy. Perfect. Plus no moʻ fabric softener smell. Hate that stuff. Clouds gathered in the afternoon, darkening the summit region.

And on days like that, in our own little worlds, itʻs kinda easy to forget whatʻs going on just a few miles away. We need days like yesterday to help us unwind. And when the lehu seems to be diminishing, and the ʻōlaʻi fewer and less shaky, we think...pau? Almost pau? Hmmmm... the big red dot = M5.3 exploquake at 505 this morning:

And then we revisit webcams, see that Keahialaka is still aflame, see that the ground around Jaggar Museum and HVO (Hawaiian Volcano Observatory) is still that odd pale greytan color, feel the shaking, breathe the hauna air in places, and we know...not pau.

Thisʻll be a tidying up session of random bits, noted but most not previously posted, I think...

Walking at the Volcano Golf Course yesterday was excellent. And though the sky was mostly clear, the vogash blanketed part of Kapāpala on the slope of Mauna Loa. Remember the puhiohio lehu on the floor of Kaluapele - the caldera? They, and regular winds, pick up the finest of lehu, and that babypowder ash remains suspended in the air for...how long, I wonder. Itʻs like when get booming BIG surfs and clouds of ʻehu kai, that salty mist of crashing waves, are suspended over the shore. Makes everything sticky and your glasses fuzzy, but those inconveniences are way worth the sight:

Haki nuʻanuʻa mai ka nalu mai kahiki

Heavily breaks the surf from Kahiki

The above, in Fornander, is a line from the Prayer of Malaehaakoa, in The Legend of Hiiakaikapoliopele. Long long time ago, I think Hālau o Kekuhi and Sig collaborated on tee shirts, and I recall (I hope correctly) that Noe cut a design, captioned as above.

And why I went down that side street, who knows??? Maybe because the ʻehu kai stirred a memory. And plus I still have the tee shirt.

The lehu-coated kaulu at Uēkahuna outside Jaggar Museum, steamy mists, leaden sky, yesterday afternoon:

Topic Change

Some wonder, Why on earth did "they" allow people to build homes on the most active rift zone of the most active volcano on earth?

good article in Civil Beat, Honolulu

And another interesting read on the topic is "Land and Power in Hawaii" by George Cooper and Gavan Daws.

Thousands upon thousands of houselots are on the Island of Hawaiʻi. The majority, I would guess, are in areas of Lava-Flow Hazard Zones 1-3, as depicted below. Many lots are without utilities, including County water, roads are "substandard", many unpaved, and many many folks are perfectly happy with those conditions. All of us in Volcano do not have County water service. The water line stops down the hill at Oshiro Road, between Mountain View and Glenwood.

Plenty lots + few or no services = relatively Cheap Land

None of this is secret, but there are some who get caught up in the romance of living in Hawaiʻi, and disregard realities, donʻt do adequate research, and donʻt really understand what theyʻre getting into. Such is life.

And our lives continue. Native Hawaiians have lived with Pelehonuamea and her pele for centuries. They too watched beloved landscapes altered, and entirely new ones created. They too had communities, agricultural lands, shorelines and beaches, fish ponds, trail networks, forests, and wahi pana (legendary places) buried, while others were created. In the 1400ʻs, in Puna, an eruption and lava flows lasted 75 years or so. Starting near todays Kīlauea iki, flows made their way all the way down through the ahupuaʻa of Keaʻau, to the sea, and created a delta at Hawaiian Paradise Park and neighboring communities. Ka lae Kaloli (Kaloli Point) is the terminus of a 40-mile-long lava tube active during those years.

Don Swanson, a volcanologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and one of my mentors, has written edifying papers, tying together the science of that eruption and centuries of periodic explosive activity that followed, and Native Hawaiian traditions. The "Legends and Myths" of Pele and Hiʻiaka mā, are real. They arenʻt fairy tales or mere stories. Give these a read and see what you think. Please let me know if the links DONʻT work:

Don Swanson Pele and Hiʻiaka Summary

Swanson: Hawaiian Oral Tradition Describes