Wednesday, May 8, 2019. (Not?) Paying Attention, Part the Second

So.  Iʻm happy I left when I did yesterday.  Left to my own devices, the telling couldʻve easily gone off the rails.  Instead, I enjoyed the morning walk, and still the abundance of lehua bloom is an amazement.  As Iʻve said, the polymorpha - ness of the flowers are subtle in their many shades of red, the length of lihilihi (stamens), the numbers of individual flowers per cluster, etc.  Lehua come in many colors from the deepest red to the palest yellow, but in the park, at least along routes frequently traveled, live only the red ones.  

Not being the best photographer, I still wanted to share the following.  Iʻm learning how long from bud to seed.  The first picture was captured on April 24, 

and this one on May 4, ten days later:

Stay tuned for the release of seeds, pictured in an earlier post.

Spent three hours walking talking and enjoying with two friends, one a photographer.  A real one.  She was enthralled with the multivaried likolehua, as I was hunting for minute pūkiawe blooms.  

And a freshly unfurled frond of hāpuʻu pulu, shocking in its bright green youth.

In the same neighborhood are a few hāpuʻu ʻiʻi, this shot by cg, whom I met on the road Saturday last.  Note the stiff black hairiness of its clothing.  

Very very different than soft golden pulu of...hāpuʻu pulu.

Growing up, I often heard hāpuʻu pulu called "the wahine one", and hāpuʻu ʻiʻi "the kāne".  Now I know them to be different species.  And there are apparently hybrids.  Iʻll try remember to get a pic of one of those that I know.

And now a segue...back to the spending of money to "fix" things...

All  those pretty colors on the USGS Flow Map I posted yesterday are the historic flows.  "History" in this case being since 1840.  The Geologic Map of the Lower East Rift Zone displays a mosaic of a lot more colors; to me an indication of activeness of Pelehonuamea.

Geologic Map of the Lower East Rift Zone of Kīlauea

When the link opens, click on one of the products on the right-hand side.  I seem to always use the "Print Optimized PDF".

And as a refresher, hereʻs a screenshot of portion of the above map:

Keahialaka is at the center, with the streets in Leilani Estates displayed too.  Each color represents a distinct flow or a family of flows, by age.  

And another refresher, the Lava Hazard Zone Map, also compiled by USGS:

 USGS Lava-Flow Hazard Zone Map

And, a closeup of the area between Hilo and Pāhoa.

Kindly note, on the above image, the line drawn from Pāhoa eastward toward, and including Kumukahi, the place where the sun rises first in Hawaiʻi nei, the easternmost point in our archipelago.

Said line is Highway 132, the road from the "Y" at Lava Tree State Monument to the "4 Corners" intersection at Highway 137, the coastal route.   Please note, dear reader, that Highway 132 is ENTIRELY within Lava Hazard Zone 1.  If you are familiar with that road, youʻll perhaps know or remember that it was cut by a spatter rampart during the 1955 eruption.

And yet a third rendition with descriptive notes regarding Zones 1-3.

Another vivid memory I have of The Three Months is that of an older, presumably retired haole couple, who lived in Leilani Estates.  They were interviewed for a TV news program.  Their home was inundated, and the woman said something to the effect:  I thought Zone 1 was The Best!

Auē!  The foregoing maps and notes are my attempt to collate information and help inform and educate all, including government officials responsible for decision-making, affected residents, and persons in the general public, about the geologic realities of choosing to live on, or build infrastructure on, the Lower East Rift Zone of the most active volcano in the country.

Knowledge about Lava Flow Hazards must be the starting point for any discussions about rebuilding anything down there.  Itʻs not about Federal Money, State Money, or County Money, all of which (does it need to be said???) comes out of our pockets as taxpayers.  Itʻs not about Temporary or Permanent roads, itʻs not about whether Bob wants to rebuild his house at Kapoho Beachlots, or anywhere else in the region.  Decision-makers must have the will, the foresight, the knowledge and intelligence, to make really difficult decisions about the future of Puna ma kai.  And residents and property owners MUST understand the realities, and most importantly, the decades, centuries, and millennia of histories of Pelehonuamea and other elementals such as Kānelūhonua, he of the quaking earth, who are ultimately in charge of our collective fate.  Note too that lava flows are not the only geologic hazard of concern.  Severe earthquakes are often related to coastal subsidence as has been documented many times over the last two hundred years.  

So.  Please.  Read, learn, think, consider...and share this with friends and acquaintances.

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com

Tuesday, May 7, 2019...(Not?) Paying Attention

Ear-ringing stillness.  Save for the distant soft twitterings of ʻapapane, tis a quiet morning here in Keaʻau ma uka.  No breeze, no rain; that in-between time of shifting weather systems.  More birds awaken and their song becomes a chorus, louder and louder, perhaps incited by the abundant bloom of lehua.  Entire ʻōhiʻa trees are enrobed in shades of red and crimson.  I wonder if the emissions of lehu - ash thrown out during our 62 lūʻōniu last summer -  served to fertilize the forests?  Or if tree roots, shaken by countless ʻōlaʻi, grew faster, and somehow increased nutrient flow to treetops?  Or...

One episode of shaking, of a terrifying series of ʻōlaʻi etched in my mind is

All those pretty dots strewn on the page above give absolutely no indication of the moments of terror each, on the table below, caused.  My home is in Mauna Loa Estates, the tight grid of streets at the center.  The 19 earthquakes were very shallow, brief, and violent.  As it turned out, the subsidence of pele in the conduit at Halemaʻumaʻu caused structural adjustments to the floor of Kaluapele and to caldera-bounding faults, many of which in the area near Volcano Village are buried by layers of ash and lava flows.  

From 4p to 8p we sat, and waited, and shook, and terrified, wondered What Next?  I called a friend who knows about these things, was reassured, and shook more.  The loudness of my house and its contents shaking was maddening.  The shaking...  Iʻll guess that many in the Volcano region will carry the memory of the shaking for a time to come.  

Perhaps "Highlight" isnʻt entirely accurate, but the memory of those four hours is seared into my circuitry. 

And as the sky brightens and limegreen brilliances of freshly unfurled oho hāpuʻu (tree fern fronds) reveal themselves, I wonder about memory.  And how if one hasnʻt memories of significant events, do they (those without memories) simply exist in ignorance, or are attempts made to learn?

Thus the "(Not?) Paying Attention" topic.  

Reading news of Recovery Efforts in Puna ma kai, the hundreds of millions of dollars wanted/needed/desired for those efforts, causes me to wonder:  Why???

We have to Plan.  We have to meet and discuss.  We have to reach out and gather information.  We have to assess.  We have to determine need.  We have to reach (or attempt to reach) consensus.  We have to envision The Future.

There are those musing about rebuilding Highway 137, the coast road between Kapoho and Pohoiki.  Some residents want to rebuild in or near Vacationland Hawaii.  County officials are, as I suppose they are required to be, tangled in a web of rules, regulations, permit requirements, conflicting and competing public and private desires, and who knows what else.

A new shopping center in Pāhoa is apparently on the verge of opening, if it hasnʻt already.  TryLook good at the map above:  "2014-2015 Puʻu ʻŌʻō June 27th Flow"  Middle of the left margin of the map.  Just to the left of the word (and town of) Pāhoa.

WHY?

There apparently is no memory, and/or any will or foresight on the part of County Officials as to how and when Pelehonuamea has shaped our island. And She will continue to do so.  My mind is boggled.  How on earth can a n y o n e contemplate rebuilding?  Must be because they know not of the histories of our home.  Royal Gardens, Kapaʻahu, Kalapana, Wahaʻula, Punaluʻu, the Chain of Craters Road, Kamoamoa, Kapoho Village buried in 1960, now Vacationland and much of Leilani Estates.  

Let me go walk and clear my head.

More tomorrow.

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com