Concern for Leilani Estates as lava moves eastward underground

[WestCoastGal]

OMG look at this USGS photo from today on Nohea Street. Not sure where location-wise this photo is from, but I heard Scott Wiggers mention in yesterday's or maybe today's nighttime video that Nohea was not passable. Is this what is going to happen all over the east side of the propety? There's another photo posted near Pohoiki around 7am this morning. 

Photo: US Geological Survey

 

[WestCoastGal]

Latest aerial video I'm seeing, from yesterday, this one from Mick Kalber (Paradise Helicopters):

 

[WestCoastGal]

KHON2 did a newscast last night inside Leilani Estates and posted today. Also video of Hwy 11, and interview from a USGS geologist, the rock thrown from the eruption and subsequent ash fall shown.

 

[bgl]

Amazing photo (Nohea) and videos. And also amazing - the rain has stopped, the vog is gone and the air seems to be free of the sulphur smell, at least right here at my location. 

[Mike in LB]

Wow, that's quite a picture of Nohea St.  My house is on Nohea St, but a good distance to the north - maybe a mile or so.  Thanks for posting.

Mike Arends

Nohea St, north of Leilani Avenue

[WestCoastGal]

28 minutes ago, bgl said:

Amazing photo (Nohea) and videos. And also amazing - the rain has stopped, the vog is gone and the air seems to be free of the sulphur smell, at least right here at my location. 

I'm looking at the radar map for the Big Island on LiveStormChasing to see if they reconnected the video feed there ("No") and can see that the rain at that end of Puna looks like it's clearing up. Raining still to the SW of you on the rift. Still a pocket that I think is moving in your direction off shore but not seeing anything coming that way beyond that. Thought I read yesterday the tradewinds will be back later in the afternoon. Enjoy your day!

[WestCoastGal]

I don't think Fissure 17's leading lava toe has advanced much since last morning at 6:30am HST, from what I've read on USGS Alert page, which is when Ryan Finlay made this fb post. Still a mile or so isn't that much ground to cover for lava sometimes. It has been described as sluggish so that's good. Maybe it will stop like it did before coming into Pahoa in 2014 and people will get to keep 137 open.

 

[WestCoastGal]

Hey Everyone...Good News if you want to continue watching a LIVE feed from the house on Hwy 132 near the erupting fissures (17 etc). I just got off the phone with Brett Adair/LiveStormChasing and asked him about the feed I saw this morning that ended. He said Brandon Clement, our Hawaii Chaser, went out to get more batteries and supplies and was going to be there for the long haul providing Live video feed for as long as reasonable (fissure action, SO2 levels with wind direction and think homeowners continued access to the house). They have no issues posting the old videos or the link to the  live stream on here to be viewed here, and I thanked them for providing this service for everyone. 

So once again here's the link below. Either click on Brandon Clement's "eye" icon (or go to the Maps, find Hawaii), click on the only button on the Big Island (green it's live, orange offline at the moment). Press the play button. 

**It's Live Now to Watch**

https://livestormchasing.com/map

Pretty active, raining right now again (1:36pm HST/4:36pm PDT), and come sundown can be something pretty spectacular with lava fountaining lighting up the darkness.

[WestCoastGal]

If you are interested in watching this morning's short, 25 min. saved video that I saw live when the sun was coming up and it was raining, here it is:

Maybe something to watch if the feed goes down and you want something to watch? 

[Justin]

That picture from Nohea is definitely south Nohea St, close to Malama.  Nohea is totally fine (relatively speaking) north of Leilani.

[WestCoastGal]

UPDATE on the Info Supply Center at Hwy130 and 132. 

As of 9:42am HST it was closed until further notice due to dangerously high SO2 levels in the area. You can read about it -- click "view on facebook" at the bottom left. Have not seen her post an update on it saying it has reopened.

 

[WestCoastGal]

Mileka Lincoln just posted this very cool time-lapsed video on her fb page of this morning when the eruption happened at the summit. For the description click on the "View on Facebook" at bottom left.

 

[bgl]

Drove down to Pahoa, only to find out that the post office is closed today because of the air quality. That I can understand. What I don't grasp is the logic behind blocking off the outgoing mail boxes "since no mail will go out today". Well, what's wrong with sending it out tomorrow?  Bizarre and inconsiderate decision, forcing people to make a second trip tomorrow. Also drove around Leilani Estates after my wasted Pahoa trip and checked out a number of the cross streets that have been partially covered in lava. Let's begin with Nohea Street. This is looking south, and I am of course south of Leilani Avenue. The large crack (seen in a previous post) is just beyond the steam cloud in these photos and every now and then I could briefly see it. Just wasn't lucky enough to get a shot of it. The photo of me is only to confirm to those individuals who may wonder if I am using my mask, that YES, I am (and I was the entire time, even when driving).

[bgl]

All the rest of the photos have been taken north of Leilani Avenue. This is on Makamae Street, facing south (and Leilani Avenue).

[bgl]

Ho'okupu Street, looking south towards Leilani Avenue in the first two and looking north in the third photo.

[bgl]

Kaupili Street, again looking south towards Leilani Avenue in the first two photos. The third photo shows Matt Pattricelli's property with his palms. Totally pristine!  Amazing, looking the air quality, that these three photos were all taken from the exact same spot within 2-3 minutes.

[bgl]

Mohala Street, looking south towards Leilani Avenue. This is the exact location for Fissure #1, which opened up on May 3rd. Still smoldering in a major way.

[bgl]

Kahukai Street is passable the entire way from the upper part of the subdivision all the way down to the Mohala intersection, lightly barricaded (first photo). I parked the truck right there and walked up the hill, knowing I would have a view downhill towards Leilani Avenue (second photo). Making a left here (in the past) would take you to Pohoiki Road in just a couple of hundred yards.

[bgl]

And just to show how normal Kahukai Street is. This is looking west from the Mohala intersection.

[bgl]

And finally, Luana Street. Again, the first three photos are taken facing south and Leilani Avenue. The lava flow closest to me would have been easy to walk around (but I didn't) in order to get to the main, and very massive, flow in the distance. The fourth photo - wow, you have to admire the resilience of these Ptychosperma elegans palms. "We are not giving up and we're most certainly not surrendering!"  The fifth photo is facing north, towards Kahukai Street.

[WestCoastGal]

26 minutes ago, bgl said:

Kahukai Street is passable the entire way from the upper part of the subdivision all the way down to the Mohala intersection, lightly barricaded (first photo). I parked the truck right there and walked up the hill, knowing I would have a view downhill towards Leilani Avenue (second photo). Making a left here (in the past) would take you to Pohoiki Road in just a couple of hundred yards.

Bo, Thanks for all the great photos. Man what a mess and so many powerlines down. I feel for those guys trying to keep power to the areas that they can.

BTW that 1st photo is the location but approached from the other direction that Scott Wiggers (ApauHawaiiTours) posted in one of his later videos of Kahukai. There's a good drop off there at the crack/cones which isn't so obvious from the direction shown in your photo. I recognize the area because of the motor oil pattern on the side of the road. I think it was in Scott's morning drive today that he said that he found out what happened there. He had heard a car hit it and damaged their oil pan. Turns out talking to a HELCO worker that it was his vehicle, and he said he just didn't see it before it was too late. 

Hey, the SO2 mask looks great and glad you have it on. I guess with the Summit's ash cloud, the SO2 coming from the fissure vents, the rain pushing gases downward and lack of wind, the SO2 levels all over that area were super high. Do you have face tight goggles to wear to protect your eyes as well? I was wondering if even swimming goggles would do the trick to protect your eyes from the acid. BTW Wunderground for Pahoa has winds NE at 5-10 mph tonight and picking up tomorrow NE at 10-20mph. Tomorrow night, N at 10-20mph.

Are you heading back to Hilo tonight? 

[WestCoastGal]

BTW for anyone trying to access and watch the live feed on LiveStormsChasing, they have been having trouble routing it to FB for some reason all week and everyone else was seeing it fine. Well they tried to fix the issue and now they've been down for everyone for a while. I keep checking the map to see if it's gone green light, but if you view his live chat you can see that everyone is still waiting. It's what 4pm HST so not dark yet.

I did see on the live chat that Brandon (through Live Storm Media there) had apparently posted a short video of a new fissure spewing large amounts of lava down in that area about 23 minutes ago. Here's the video of it he was able to post to YT. The haze is from the SO2.

 

[bgl]

31 minutes ago, WestCoastGal said:

Bo, Thanks for all the great photos. Man what a mess and so many powerlines down. I feel for those guys trying to keep power to the areas that they can.

BTW that 1st photo is the location but approached from the other direction that Scott Wiggers (ApauHawaiiTours) posted in one of his later videos of Kahukai. There's a good drop off there at the crack/cones which isn't so obvious from the direction shown in your photo. I recognize the area because of the motor oil pattern on the side of the road. I think it was in Scott's morning drive today that he said that he found out what happened there. He had heard a car hit it and damaged their oil pan. Turns out talking to a HELCO worker that it was his vehicle, and he said he just didn't see it before it was too late. 

Hey, the SO2 mask looks great and glad you have it on. I guess with the Summit's ash cloud, the SO2 coming from the fissure vents, the rain pushing gases downward and lack of wind, the SO2 levels all over that area were super high. Do you have face tight goggles to wear to protect your eyes as well? I was wondering if even swimming goggles would do the trick to protect your eyes from the acid. BTW Wunderground for Pahoa has winds NE at 5-10 mph tonight and picking up tomorrow NE at 10-20mph. Tomorrow night, N at 10-20mph.

Are you heading back to Hilo tonight? 

Goggles, good idea, and no, I don't have any. Could easily pick some up from Home Depot in Hilo tomorrow. And I am planning to spend the night in LE tonight. Air quality right now is good. It's been a hit and miss today. From real bad to real good, in a very short time span. Bizarre.

[WestCoastGal]

29 minutes ago, bgl said:

Goggles, good idea, and no, I don't have any. Could easily pick some up from Home Depot in Hilo tomorrow. And I am planning to spend the night in LE tonight. Air quality right now is good. It's been a hit and miss today. From real bad to real good, in a very short time span. Bizarre.

Make sure whatever you pick up that they it will give you a tight fit against your face with the resperator on. Also if you go to HD make sure you buy ones that are made for gas exposure (thinking maybe they aren't vented like a lot of construction goggles i've seen are). That's why I was thinking along the lines of the little swim goggles I have, something like these. Mine fit really well against the face and I also chose antifog ones when I bought some. Not that I'm a fan of Walmart, but there's one in Hilo if that helps. I think I picked up mine at like a TJMaxx during the summer. Given you are on an island positive there are plenty of places in Hawaii selling them. I have a pair with clear lens and one with tinted lens (for sun). The clear would be best so you can use them at night if you have to.

[bgl]

Walmart, OK, maybe a better choice than HD. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks, Debbie! 

[WestCoastGal]

Just saw this on Brandon's Live Chat from a fellow watcher about New Fissure 21 down rift of Makamea St. in LE. Also several fissures reported reactivated. Pahoahoa lava flows. All LE residents be aware of new activity and downed lines and higher fumes.

From USGS Alert: (4:54pm HST/7:54pm PDT) This afternoon, fissure 17 is still actively spattering but the flow is nearly stalled. In addition, fissures 18, 19, and 20 have reactivated and a new fissure (21) has opened between fissures 7 and 3. An area 50-100 yards wide, parallel to and north of the line of fissures between Highway 130 and Lanipuna Gardens, has dropped slightly. This long depression is currently being filled by pahoehoe lava flows from fissures 20 and 21. *

Volcanic gas emissions remain elevated throughout the area downwind of the fissures. 

Magma continues to be supplied to the lower East Rift Zone as indicated by the continued northwest displacement of a GPS monitoring station. Elevated earthquake activity continues, but earthquake locations have not moved farther downrift in the past couple of days.

 

*I'm trying to picture this and wondering if they meant between Highway 132 and Lanipuna Gardens, instead of Hwy 130. Head scratch here and I have the maps out in front of me on the computer.

Here's the last map released by USGS, 5/16 7am:

Edited May 18, 2018 by WestCoastGal
added comment about highway and added map

[WestCoastGal]

5 minutes ago, bgl said:

Walmart, OK, maybe a better choice than HD. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks, Debbie! 

The specific ones I linked to aren't showing in stock at the Hilo location but who knows how good their inventory status is. BTW be sure to read the new Alert that just came in, posted above this post.

[Matt in SD]

Thanks the photo Bo.  Crazy how  normal it looks.  I think the new fissure (21) is pretty close.  The suspense of all this is hard to take.  We have insurance, and we have a great renter who is dying to move back in if/when things go back to normal.  So I'm fully prepared for 1) the house getting burned down or 2) the house not getting burned down but still being accessible and liveable at some point in the not too distant future.  Still worried about the worst case scenario, which is lava cutting off access and making the property unliveable, but not actually burning the house down.  We'll make do either way though.  This is all quite an experience.

 

Matt

[WestCoastGal]

The guys at the Hwy 132 house when the feed was up were talking about how high F17 was shooting up material. I saw some of it myself on the feed. Had to turn down the volume occasionally because the blast was so loud. Anyway further confirming this, I saw this video on USGS's multimedia area. The description on the site says larger pieces sent to about 500 ft. One of the guys commented he hoped they didn't start falling their way. Sounds like from what USGS said a while ago that new magma may be coming in at a higher concentration (as opposed to the older 1955 magma stored down under)--it would flow faster, and forgot how it was stated, but be more explosive which I interpreted as higher fountaining. The pahoehoe I think spreads out wider of an area although it general takes longer unless flowing downhill and they said it was filling a ground depression. Real geology lessons here.

https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/multimedia_uploads/multimediaFile-2045.mp4

 

[bgl]

12 minutes ago, Matt in SD said:

Thanks the photo Bo.  Crazy how  normal it looks.  I think the new fissure (21) is pretty close.  The suspense of all this is hard to take.  We have insurance, and we have a great renter who is dying to move back in if/when things go back to normal.  So I'm fully prepared for 1) the house getting burned down or 2) the house not getting burned down but still being accessible and liveable at some point in the not too distant future.  Still worried about the worst case scenario, which is lava cutting off access and making the property unliveable, but not actually burning the house down.  We'll make do either way though.  This is all quite an experience.

 

Matt

"Quite an experience" - indeed it is. And I was actually very surprised how "normal" Kahukai looks and the fact that Kaupili Street from that direction is pretty much untouched by the devastation just a bit further south. This is probably far from over, but as long as the activity remains localized in areas south of your place and especially south of Leilani Avenue you would have access from Kahukai. I think "cautiously optimistic" is a reasonable and not totally unrealistic approach.

[WestCoastGal]

So more info from the Brandon's livestormchasing Chat. 

Ikaika Marzo has a short video up on his FB page on the new F21 - Hookupu. If someone can access it, please post the URL for the video here so we can all see it. Thanks.

Honolulu Civil Beat just went live on FB for just a minute supposedly. Same guys who were at the Hwy 132 house earlier in the week. Someone is thinking maybe they were checking out the connection. I remember they had hopes of controlling a camera from their offices back in Honolulu. But someone else thinks they recognized Anthony's voice earlier today and flew back. 

Also Epic Lava Tours is suppose to be running a nice live stream, again FB.

Sounds like Prophetic Times on YT has a live view (that was the trumpet video from earlier in the week).

I've never done much with live streaming before and live chatting so learning a bit here. 

 

 

[WestCoastGal]

Here's video a few minutes that was live from Lava News on FB that I was able to find.

I can see this is going to be a night of tracking or trying to track down live feeds. 

[WestCoastGal]

OK let's try Honolulu Civil Beat. Got the url from the Chat room.

 

 

[bgl]

As of 7:05 pm, a couple of incredibly powerful explosions, presumably from the most recent one, #21. 

[WestCoastGal]

FFIW, here's a 2-hr previously streamed live video of Fissure 17 area from earlier this morning before the feed failed. They really have been having problems keeping the feed up and reaching everyone. Last I read on a chat was that Anthony from Civil Beat had a plane to catch and would fix the problem from the office so hopefully before midnight PDT. It's an expensive proposition for these guys, especially for those that have to fly last minute cross the U.S. to be here for starters. 

 

 

[WestCoastGal]

This is a cool time lapse video (Dane Dupont) of Leilani Estates taken from the USGS web-camera at Kapoho. Runs from 5/6 to 5/11.

 

[WestCoastGal]

Watched a few of H.I.S Survival's YT videos. Found a few more recent ones to share.

Leilani street update for Wed. 5/16 @ 1:30pm HST.  -  Kahukai. On Malama with blue hue gases. Pomalkai and Malama.

His next video was published today, Thursday. Thought we could use a diversion from the brown landscape.

 

[WestCoastGal]

Video from 3 hours ago on FB from Epic Lava Tours. Fissure 17, a bit more slowed down but you can see it's still active.

 

[WestCoastGal]

More footage that was live before from Civil Beats. 42 min. Some closeups.

Heading out early since I'm not sure when the live feed will be fixed.

[WestCoastGal]

Last videos for the night, this of the view on Moku from late this afternoon. Looks like Scott (ApauHawaiiTours) got back from his tour. 

And this final one comes from Big Island Video News. Uploaded today, 5/17. Scientists explain the types of activity taking place in the Lower East Rift Zone.