Skip to footer

Hawaii volcano: Will flowing lava force evacuations?

As creeping lava threatens the village of Pahoa, Hawaii, officials are preparing to evacuate the area.

|
U.S. Geological Survey/AP
Lava pushes through a fence marking a property boundary above the town of Pahoa on the Big Island of Hawaii on Tuesday.

As lava crawls closer to houses and other buildings, residents of Pahoa, Hawaii, may soon have to evacuate the area. Many more citizens in the Puna district have been affected by the flow so far, and state officials are preparing for lava to overtake homes soon.

The Kilauea volcano overwhelmed a residential area on Tuesday morning, and later that evening, lava was about 370 yards away from Pahoa Village Road, having advanced some 230 yards since Sunday evening.

A civil defense alert said that residents were notified of a “possible need for evacuation,” but residents began leaving their homes as early as September.   

Though the current eruption began in 1983, lava from the volcano started to flow on June 27 of this year and, after a brief standstill in September has now creeped to Pahoa, CNN reported. An emergency shelter in Keaau, about six miles from Pahoa, has cots and bathrooms available for those who have evacuated their homes, Hawaii News Now reported Monday. 

Other measures so far include the restoration of different routes around affected areas, according to Hawaiian civil defense officials. As of last week, about 900 children were displaced from school because of the volcano. On Friday, Gov. Neil Abercrombie officially asked for federal aid.

Pahoa, which is home to about 950 people on the Big Island, is no stranger to disaster. State officials have handled emergencies in the past by distributing information and lowering barriers to state resources.

When Hurricane Iselle threatened to hit Big Island last summer, Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a proclamation that eased state officials’ access to emergency resources, Hawaii News Now reported at the time. Eventually, the hurricane rolled through as a moderately intense tropical storm. Emergency shelters opened throughout the state when power outages blanketed the island, The Weather Channel reported.

In the past, the state’s emergency management agency website has posted fact sheets on topics related to disaster.“What should I do in an emergency if my kids are at school or daycare?” one asks. (The first step, according to the sheet, is to learn about the school’s emergency plan.)

More than 27 inches of rain hit Hilo, also on the Big Island, in November 2000 floods. Nearly $9 million of county funds went toward repairs, and then-President Bill Clinton declared the area a state of emergency.

The volcano is a sacred place, known as Tutu Pele — a deity who is known for taking her land back from humans.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Hawaii volcano: Will flowing lava force evacuations?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/1029/Hawaii-volcano-Will-flowing-lava-force-evacuations
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe