Living in Lava's Path: A Slow Motion Disaster | The New York Times

(drums)

[Heather] Ultimately, whatever
the volcano,Pele, decides to do

is what we will have to obey.

And so, if she wants to flow to the sea and
she wants to create more of her island,

and create new beaches, new lava fields

then we will--

[crash heard in background]

--allow her to do that.

[Laughter]

And so, she's the boss here.

[slow guitar music]

[Darryl]The eruption that is generating
the current lava flow

has been ongoing for over 30 years.

Historically, the flow has been to
the south-west side of the island

but on June 27th, a new fissure has
redirected the flow direction or path

in a more north-east direction.

Back in October it did enter
the community.

It crossed over one of the roadways there,

went through a small cemetery,

and it went on to one
residential property -

a fairly large farm property.

This is going to be a very slow,
difficult, painful, frustrating event.

What could be our worst scenario
is that it crosses highway 130,

which is a primary state highway arterial
that services that whole area.

You're look at between
7 to 15 thousand vehicles daily

that would be stuck.

[Guitar music]

[Dani] A lot of people
actually left the island,

and I imagine it was probably
people who were renting

because it's different for the people
who are home owners out there.

They are not usually in a place
that they can just take off.

[guitar continues]

[Heather]My husband and I decided
that we could either relocate

outside of the Puna region,
on the other side of the flow,

or secondly, the choice that we
ultimately decided to make,

was he left his job in Hilo,

so that we would be able to stay on this
side of the flow no matter what happened.

Whether it crossed the access road or not.

We really love it here,
and we wanted to stay.

[Darryl]Well, I think the local community,

living with this in our backyard for
generations, for lifetimes,

has come to accept that this is part of
living on a volcanically active island.

Fortunately, we've seen the flow
advance to a certain point,

and then stall.

So, if it continues like this,
we could just see a widening

rather than a forward advancement,

and threatening roadways and other
infrastructure.

[Dani]More tourists want to come
over here and check out the lava story,

so people are getting very angry.

They're like, "this is our life.
This is our misfortune.

It's not something to come snap pictures
of. That's really disrespectful".

But I get it, Pahoa is cool.

[birds singing]