PAHOA, Hawaii (AP) - Hawaii officials said Tuesday they are preparing for the possibility that Kilauea’s lava flow may cross key roads and cut off a large part of the Big Island’s Puna district from the rest of the island within weeks.
Hawaii County Mayor Billy Kenoi told a community meeting in Pahoa that officials are discussing moving a police substation to make sure officers will be on both sides of the flow.
They’ve also talked about moving ambulances to make sure enough will be quickly available, Kenoi said.
“We’re not going to leave our children and our families strapped, disconnected and cut off,” the mayor told several hundred people packed into the Pahoa High School cafeteria.
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on Monday said lava could reach the government road in Pahoa in 16 to 18 days. It may bypass north of Kaohe Homesteads subdivision or hit the northern part of the subdivision, geologists said.
Officials are concerned the flow may cross and block off Highway 130, a two-lane road connecting Puna to Hilo and the rest of the island.
The county is exploring improving and extending other roads to provide alternatives. Kenoi said he’s asked the heads of the state departments of transportation and of land and natural resources to fast-track the permitting process so the county may extend Railroad Avenue, one of the alternate routes, through state land.
Janet Babb, a spokeswoman for the observatory, said geologists forecast the lava’s location based on the downhill path of the flow, the topography of the land, the lava’s volume and the speed it’s advancing.
The predictions may shift, however, depending on the latest observations.
“I like to say the only constant here is change,” Babb said after the community meeting.
She said the flow has been difficult to forecast in recent weeks because the lava has primarily been traveling through cracks in the ground. Its course should be easier to forecast when the flow returns to the surface.
Kilauea has been erupting continuously since 1983. Most of the lava from this eruption has flowed south from the Puu Oo vent and into the ocean. But lava has crept toward the northeast over the past two years. The current flow began on June 27. It’s the first to threaten a residential area since 2010-2011.
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