Hawaii Braces for More...

[Mystic Wanderer]

Hawaii, one of the most sought-after places to live, has been targeted by Mother Nature with volcanoes and earthquakes.
I have always wanted to visit Hawaii, but I think I will move it to the end of my do-to list for now.    

PAHOA, Hawaii (AP) — Sputtering lava, strong earthquakes and toxic gas jolted the southern part of the Big Island of Hawaii as magma shifted underneath a restless Kilauea volcano.

The trifecta of natural threats forced stressed out residents to evacuate and prompted the closure of parks and college campuses on Friday.

Multiple new vents, from which lava is spurting out of the ground, formed in the same residential neighborhood where molten rock first emerged Thursday. At midday, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck — the biggest of hundreds of quakes this week and the largest to strike the state in 43 years. Residents were also warned to watch out for dangerous levels of sulfuric gas.
Hawaiian Volcano Observatory spokeswoman Janet Babb said the earthquakes reflected the volcano adjusting to the shifting magma.

"The magma moving down the rift zones, it causes stress on the south flank of the volcano," Babb said. "We're just getting a series of earthquakes."

She said scientists were studying whether the quakes would affect the eruption.

The lava lake at Kilauea's summit crater dropped significantly, suggesting the magma was moving eastward toward Puna, a mostly rural district of forests, papaya farms and lava fields left by past eruptions.

Officials ordered more than 1,700 people out of Big Island communities near the lava, warning of the dangers of spattering hot rock and high levels of sulfuric gas that could threaten the elderly and people with breathing problems. Two homes have burned.
Julie Woolsey evacuated her home late Thursday as a volcanic vent, or an opening in the Earth's surface where lava emerges, sprouted up on her street in the Leilani Estates neighborhood.

Lava was about 1,000 yards from her home, which Woolsey built on a lot purchased for $35,000 11 years ago after living on Maui became too expensive.

"We knew we were building on an active volcano," she said, but added that she thought the danger from lava was a remote possibility.

She said she thought it was remote even days ago when she began packing and preparing to evacuate.
"You can't really predict what Pele is going to do," Woolsey said, referring to the Hawaiian volcano goddess. "It's hard to keep up. We're hoping our house doesn't burn down."

She let her chickens loose, loaded her dogs into her truck and evacuated with her daughter and grandson. She's staying at a cabin with her daughter's in-laws.

Local authorities held a community meeting with residents from lava affected areas Friday night at Pahoa High School.
Two new volcanic vents, from which lava is spurting, developed Friday, bringing the number formed to five.

State Sen. Russell Ruderman said he's experienced many earthquakes, but the magnitude-5.4 temblor that hit first "scared the heck out of me." Merchandise fell off the shelves in a natural food store he owns.

When the larger quake followed, he said he felt strong shaking in Hilo, the island's largest city that is roughly 45 minutes from the rural Puna area.

"We're all rattled right now," he said. "It's one thing after another. It's feeling kind of stressful out here."

State officials didn't report damage to roadways. Hawaii County Acting Mayor Wil Okabe said the larger quake cracked a beam in a county gymnasium in Hilo, forcing workers to be sent home.

Hawaii Electric Light said the jolt knocked out power to about 14,400 customers, but electricity was restored about two hours later.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park evacuated all visitors and non-emergency staff. The quakes triggered rock slides on park trails and crater walls. Narrow fissures appeared on the ground at a building overlooking the crater at Kilauea's summit.

The University of Hawaii at Hilo and Hawaii Community College both closed campuses to allow students and employees to "attend to personal business and priorities."

Authorities already had closed a long stretch of Highway 130, one of the main arteries through Puna, because of the threat of sulfuric gas.

At Leilani Estates, where lava was pushing through cracks in the earth, some residents still wanted to get home.
Brad Stanfill said the lava was more than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from his house but he was not allowed in because of a mandatory evacuation order. He was frustrated because he wanted to feed his rabbits and dogs and check on his property.

One woman angrily told police guarding Leilani Estates that she was going in and they couldn't arrest her. She stormed past police unopposed.

Leilani Estates has about 1,700 residents and 770 homes. A nearby neighborhood, Lanipuna Gardens, which has a few dozen people, also has been evacuated.

Kilauea has been continuously erupting since 1983 and is one of five volcanoes that make up the Big Island. Activity picked up earlier this week, indicating a possible new lava outbreak.

The crater floor began to collapse Monday, triggering earthquakes and pushing the lava into new underground chambers. The collapse caused magma to push more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) downslope toward the populated southeast coastline.
Residents have faced lava threats before.

In 2014, lava burned a house and destroyed a cemetery near the town of Pahoa. Residents were worried it would cover the town's main road and cut off the community from the rest of the island, but the molten rock stalled.

From 1990 through 1991, lava slowly overtook the town of Kalapana, burning homes and covering roads and gardens.
Kilauea hasn't been the kind of volcano that shoots lava from its summit into the sky, causing widespread destruction. It tends to ooze lava from fissures in its sides, which often gives residents at least a few hours' warning before it reaches their property.
___
Associated Press writers Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, Audrey McAvoy and Sophia Yan in Honolulu, Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, and Alina Hartounian in Phoenix contributed to this report.

source

I don't know why anyone would want to build a house/home so close to the path of a volcano anyway, but they do, everywhere across the globe. What's wrong with people?  

[guohua]

I Sorry,,, No, No I'm Not.
Hawaii is a Liberal Bastion of Progressives with a some Federal Judge that Blakes President Trump every chance they get!

Piss On Hawaii, maybe it'll sink!

[Mystic Wanderer]

This should make you very happy @"guohua".    

PAHOA, Hawaii (Reuters) -
The Kilauea volcano erupted again on Tuesday, spewing toxic gases out of two new vents and prompting authorities to call for an immediate evacuation of residents from a second neighborhood on the Big Island.

The County of Hawaii Civil Defense Agency issued an emergency bulletin ordering residents of the Lanipuna Gardens area on the east side of the island to leave their homes.

"Hawaiian Volcano Observatory confirms 2 new vents. All Lanipuna residents must evacuate now," the agency said in its bulletin, adding that the two vents had opened near two road intersections and were "actively erupting".

Earlier on Tuesday residents of the hardest hit area, known as Leilani Estates, drove through clouds of sulfur and over cracked roads to make desperate and possibly last visits home before another eruption by Kilauea, which has already destroyed 35 homes and other structures.

David Nail, who recently sold his business and moved to Lelani Estates from Orange County, California after his wife was diagnosed with Parkinsons disease, said a 20-foot wall of lava blocked him from getting close enough to see if his house had been destroyed.

"All we could do was sit there and cry," Nail said.

Earlier in the day U.S. Army veteran Delance Weigel, 71, collected some of his prized possessions as steam and sulfur dioxide gas rose out of cracks in the street.

"The way it looks now, I thought I'd try one more time to get my things out," Weigel said. "Whether we lose our home or not, we'll see. But we're definitely going to be cut off. You move to paradise, then this happens."


No deaths or major injuries have been reported since Kilauea, which has been in a state of nearly constant eruption since 1983, began a series of major explosions on Thursday, spewing fountains of lava as high as 300 feet (90 meters) into the air and deadly volcanic gas up through cracks in the earth.

(For a graphic explaining the eruption: https://tmsnrt.rs/2IldVyS)
Kilauea predominantly pours basaltic lava flows into the ocean, but occasionally experiences more explosive events such as the one that began last week.

Some 1,700 residents were ordered to leave Leilani Estates, where lava has been bubbling out of some 2-1/2 miles (4 km) of fissures in the ground emanating from Kilauea lava tunnels on the eastern side of the Big Island.
New areas could be subject to evacuation as fingers of the fissure system slowly spread eastward, threatening neighborhoods that until now had been considered safe.

"There's still plenty of magma under the ground. Seismicity is still up," Hawaii Civil Defense Administrator Talmadge Magno told a community meeting on Monday night. "If things get dicey, you got to get out."

Read more: Hawaii volcano erupts again, prompting new evacuations

[guohua]

@"Mystic Wanderer"  It does make me Happy and I'd be even Happier if that Damn Place Sunk and took all those Bleeding Heart Liberals with it.

[Mystic Wanderer]

THERE SHE BLOWS!    

HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii's Kilauea volcano erupted anew before dawn Thursday, shooting a steely gray plume of ash about 30,000 feet (9,100 meters) into the sky that began raining down on a nearby town.

The explosion at the mountain summit came shortly after 4 a.m. following two weeks of volcanic activity that sent lava flows into neighborhoods and destroyed at least 26 homes.

The eruption probably lasted only a few minutes, and the ash accumulations were minimal, with only trace amounts expected near the volcano, said Mike Poland, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

Some people in the community closest to the volcano slept through the blast, said Kanani Aton, a spokeswoman for Hawaii County Civil Defense, who spoke to relatives and friends in the town called Volcano.

At least one person who was wake heard nothing. Epic Lava tour operator John Tarson is an early-riser and said he only learned about the eruption because he received an alert on his phone.

Tarson said the ash plume looked different than others he's witnessed because of its sheer height. A video he shared on Facebook showed a towering column of ash reaching into a hazy sky.

"What I noticed is the plume was just rising straight into the air, and it was not tipping in any direction," he said.
"We've been expecting this, and a lot of people are going to see it and get excited and scared," he added.

Authorities cautioned that wind could carry the ash as far as Hilo. The National Weather Service issued an ash advisory until noon. Several schools closed because of the risk of elevated levels of sulfur dioxide, a volcanic gas.

Robert Hughes owns the Aloha Junction Bed and Breakfast, about a mile and a half from the crater. He said he did not hear anything either and is in an area that did not get any ash.
So far, he said, Thursday has been a "nice rainy day."

His business has been hit hard by fears of the volcano, once an attraction for visitors. He said he's lost hundreds of reservations and had just three guests Thursday instead of the 12 to 14 he has typically served.

One of the guests was a news reporter. The other two were from Italy.
"In the old days, people used to love to come see the volcano. They'd even take their little postcards, burn one corner in the lava flow, mail then off, stuff like that," he said. "Now they're acting like it's all super-dangerous and everything, but it just kind oozes out."

The crater sits within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which has been closed since May 11 because of the risk of a more violent eruption.

Officials have said the eruption isn't likely to be dangerous as long as people stay out of the closed park.
Kilauea is one of the world's most active volcanoes. An eruption in 1924 killed one person and sent rocks, ash and dust into the air for 17 days.

Scientists warned on May 9 that a drop in the lava lake at the summit might create conditions for an explosion that could fling ash and refrigerator-sized boulders into the air.

Geologists predicted such a blast would mostly release trapped steam from flash-heated groundwater. Communities a mile or two away could be showered by pea-size fragments or dusted with nontoxic ash, they said.

The volcano has been erupting continuously since 1983. It's one of five volcanoes on Hawaii's Big Island, and the only one currently erupting.
___
Associated Press Writer Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, contributed to this report.

Watch a video of the eruption here:  Hawaii volcano erupts anew, sends huge ash plume into sky

[Mystic Wanderer]

For anyone interested, here is a streaming live feed of the volcano.  It seems to still be very active. 

https://youtu.be/HtihmXFWqGo

[Mystic Wanderer]

https://youtu.be/KmGeeYQBIho

[727Sky]

Edited: I used the Insert a Link Tab above to create this, Source link.

Kilauea's Wrath Threatens Power Plant — And Hawaii's Most Powerful Industry

Updated at 5:27 p.m. ET
In the weeks since the Kilauea volcano began belching lava into Hawaii's residential areas, the fiery flow has destroyed dozens of structures and covered scores of acres on the Big Island. But authorities fear its destructive reach could ravage at least two more cornerstones of the state: its power supply and, a little less tangibly, its all-important tourism industry.
On Monday evening local time, the Hawaii County Civil Defense agency announced that lava from nearby fissures had begun to encroach on the southern edge of a significant source of the state's power, the Puna Geothermal Venture.
The plant harvests hot liquid and steam from underground wells to drive turbine generators for electricity, which is then sold to the state's utility.
Another risk, besides the loss of power, rests in what might happen if the lava overcomes the state's protective measures: "There's a steam release, there's many chemicals, but primarily the critical factor would be hydrogen sulfide, a very deadly gas," Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency chief, Tom Travis, told reporters Monday night.