Aloha to my Steemit Community!
Eeps here, back on Steemit after an exciting couple of months here on the Big Island of Hawaii.
(Photo by Bruce Omori - photographer for Paradise Helicopters, Hilo, Hawaii)
Sorry for the prolonged absence. I was literally busy trying to stay afloat with all the "natural disasters" that have been non-stop for the last few months here on Big Island, Hawaii.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Part 1: LAVA
First off, on May 3rd, 2018, we had a huge change with the Volcano I live on, Kilauea. The normal eruption zone, Pu'u O'o, which has been nearly continuously erupting since 1984, caved in on itself, causing a huge pink plume in the air that was seen for miles. Later that evening, cracks opened up in a residential area where lava started spattering up in the middle of the road, in peoples yards, etc. This was the start of a Forever Change in this area.
(Photo by USGS because No One was allowed into the area if you did not have a pass to get in)
In the following days / weeks, over 20 fissures opened up and started erupting hot lava. This happened over roads, in peoples yards, and quickly started covering large areas, taking homes and severely changing residents lives forever.
(another photo by Bruce Omori)
Eventually a lot of the volume of lava started erupting from what they are calling "Fissure 8"
This fissure grew into a cone with a lava lake viciously pumping lava that made a HUGE lava river down to the ocean, covering more homes and entire communities. Fast forward 3 months, there was over 700 homes that were destroyed by the lava flows.
Part 2 : Earthquakes & Ash Eruptions
Meanwhile, all this Pele Lava action was happening down in lower puna, leilani, kapoho, etc, the summit of Kilauea Volcano was not exactly quiet..
(drone photo taken by my friend on May 15th, my house is right below this photo)
I live a few miles from the summit caldera of Kilauea. During all the huge outputs of lava down in Puna, the summit lava lake was quickly draining, which was followed by HUGE ash eruptions in Halemaumau crater. We had hundreds of earthquakes everyday shaking up the residents and all our homes. We had a 5.3 magnitude earthquake DAILY for a few months!!! I kinda enjoyed them, as a constant reminder that we live on an active volcano. Others however would get anxiety from all the rock and roll. TRUE STORY: One neighbor down the road actually had to get a patch on his arm to help with his motion sickness caused by the constant earthquakes, just to be able to handle living in Volcano!!!!
(another drone photo taken in May 2018 of Ash Eruption at Halemaumau)
A lot of the ash from these summit explosions were carried down to Ka'u, some of it even made its way all the way to KONA!!!! I am so grateful that the tradewinds did not bring this ash towards my house. Mahalo ke akua! This continued on for about a month. I started a new game in our house, guess the magnitude. Whenever we would feel an earthquake, we would guess the magnitude, then refresh the USGS earthquake list to see how close we were. Lemme tell ya, I got pretty good at guessing the magnitude after a while there.
Part 3 : FOREST FIRE
photo by HVNP
After a solid couple months of our daily 5.3 - 5.4 magnitude earthquake, things massively slowed down. We haven't had a 5.3 earthquake for a good 2.5 weeks, since August 2nd, 2018. Just when we thought things were finally about to calm down, on August 5th, a brushfire started at the ranch in Ka'u that quickly spread over to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park lands threatening special ecological areas and native hawaiian rainforest / mesic forests that have a lot of unique and rare plants. :(
photo by HVNP, Zoom out view of fire spreading on Mauna Loa
Part 4 : HURRICANES!
You thought I was done, didn't ya? So the eruption and earthquakes stopped, now we have a fire going on, and here comes Hurricane Hector on its way to hit Big Island Hawaii! I thought that would actually be like a blessing, and help put out the fire. But somehow Hector decided to dodge the big island altogether, and we didn't get much rain at all from Hector. We did however, get a group of 60 firefighters come in from California to help contain the fire here. Mahalo to those who came to kokua! I did get a chance to speak to some of them and they absolutely loved it here. They said the fire here was a lot easier than fires they are used to fighting, so it was almost like a vacation for them.
Fast forward to today, and now we have Hurricane LANE heading towards Hawaii. Always something exciting going on here. And that is what I have been occupied with for the last few months. I will come out with a separate post about how the TOURISM of Big Island is currently DEAD due to the prolonged closure of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. This is a huge hit for our economy and a lot of small (and big) businesses have already closed their doors, unable to stay open with the lack of tourists visiting our beloved island.
Thanks for reading my humble update. Stay posted for more, live from Big Island Hawaii
<3 Eeps from Hawaii
