PAHOA, Hawaii (USA TODAY) — Weary residents struggled Monday to return to normal despite a destructive lava flow that shows no signs of slowing as it sets homes ablaze and alters the geography of this idyllic area.
Elsewhere on the Big Island, life went on as usual.
Lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano through the Leilani Estates neighborhood has destroyed at least 26 homes, along with power lines. It has covered many streets with a rock-hard flow that’s up to 10 feet deep in places and still throwing off more heat than a college-town pizza oven on a Friday night.
The lava is escaping from 10 vents or fissures that have opened beneath the neighborhood since last week, flinging molten rock more than 200 feet in the air and oozing over everything it encounters. A magnitude-6.9 earthquake — Hawaii’s largest in more than 40 years — struck the area Friday.
About 1,700 people remain evacuated from the area and faced the start of the work week with a mix of hope and resignation. Hundreds use Red Cross shelter facilities to sleep, bathe and eat, to gather with neighbors to trade rumors — and to wait for the volcano Goddess Pele to calm.
“This ain’t normal for none of us,” evacuee Donovan Lease said as he helped move donations at the shelter Sunday night. “But everyone is trying to make the best of it.”
A tiny sense of normalcy is returning to the area, thanks to the start of schools Monday and the reopening of nearby Volcanoes National Park. For the majority of Big Island residents, the lava flows are far from their first concern.
Pahoa isn’t on the island’s main tourist route, although it draws visitors who for years have walked out onto a nearby lava flow to watch smaller vents ooze liquid rock.
In Hilo, about 35 miles away, life continues normally with little worry about the flows, which gravity dictates will pour into the ocean before they ever get close. The Big Island is home to about 200,000 residents and draws nearly 9 million tourists annually to marvel — briefly — at the raw power of the volcanoes and snap selfies with the lava.
To some outsiders, the idea of making your home on such an island seems a bit ridiculous. But just as Wisconsinites have grown accustomed to the cold and Kansans live with the spring/summer threat of tornadoes, Hawaiians generally accept the risk. A big driver is the price of land: A plot for an off-the-grid home might cost just $7,500.
Sunday night, evacuee Dana Donovan worried about the fate of her land and whether the flowing lava would permanently block her access. Hedging her bets, Donovan dismantled her solar panels and backup batteries before she left. She dismantled and sold her catchment basin, which off-grid residents use to capture rainwater for bathing.
"I'm so sad for the people who didn't get that chance," she said.
Just outside the evacuation zone, a steady stream of locals poured through a community-created recovery center staffed with insurance experts, Reiki masters and women stuffing sandwiches into bags for evacuees.
Vaaiga Pola-Wilson, who grew up in the area, returned to help pack snack bags and foster a sense of ohana — the Hawaiian concept of family. Pola-Wilson said residents are doing their best to carry on, drawing upon the community's strength to carry them through the tough days ahead.
"We never know what tomorrow will bring," she said. "Only God knows that."
