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