The June 27 lava flow advanced about 290 yards between Tuesday morning and Wednesday afternoon and could reach the Pahoa Village Road-Highway 130 intersection in less than a week, Hawaii County Civil Defense Administrator Darryl Oliveira said Wednesday.
The June 27 lava flow advanced about 290 yards between Tuesday morning and Wednesday afternoon and could reach the Pahoa Village Road-Highway 130 intersection in less than a week, Hawaii County Civil Defense Administrator Darryl Oliveira said Wednesday.
“At the current rate of 220 yards, we are about five to six days out,” he said, shortly before noon. At 4:45 p.m. Wednesday, Civil Defense reported the flow has advanced an additional 70 yards.
As of 4:45 p.m. Wednesday, the leading edge of the flow was 0.9 miles upslope of the intersection, which is where Pahoa Marketplace is located. It is between 1,200 and 1,300 yards from reaching the back of the complex, Oliveira said.
Oliveira said Civil Defense and the state Department of Transportation will decide together when the highway might close. An alternate route on Railroad Avenue would be open before the highway is closed to give motorists time to adjust.
If the flow covers the highway, it might still be possible to build a road or pedestrian path over it, Oliveira said.
“The concept would be to build over a hardened and solidified and stable lava flow after it crossed the highway,” he said. “If there’s an active tube system, a lot more needs to be considered.”
No date has been set for closing the highway or evacuating the marketplace. Those decisions will depend on flow rates of the lava as it nears.
The gas station at the marketplace and Subway both closed Tuesday evening while Lex Brodie’s Tire was to close Wednesday. Malama Market and Ace Hardware will close at 6 p.m. Thursday.
Malama Market remained busy Wednesday as shoppers tried to get their groceries before it closes.
“I wish it wasn’t going to take our store,” said Ralph Archuleta of Pahoa. “It’s all we got except 7-Eleven.”
Some shops were planning to stay open as long as possible.
“We do have produce provided here and they are going to need it,” said June Blas of Cryzl’s Variety Store.
Other businesses near the marketplace also are making plans to close.
William Waiau, manager of Longs Pharmacy’s Pahoa location, said the store is steeply discounting seasonal and perishable items in anticipation of being told to evacuate. No closure date has been set.
“Pharmacy needs will be handled at other (Longs) stores,” he said.
Waiau wasn’t aware of any other pharmacies left in the area.
“Unfortunately, there’s no place in Pahoa where we would be able to make a mobile type of store,” he said.
Lori Kong, owner of Aloha Lehua Cafe, said she expects to be the last one evacuated.
Her cafe is located next to Longs across Pahoa Village Road from the marketplace.
She said the timing couldn’t be worse.
“It is Christmas,” Kong said. “For me, it’s very heartbreaking.”
Still, she said she is going to do her best to help keiki in the area despite also facing closure because of the flow. Kong said she will be offering 1,000 gift certificates for keiki nachos at her cafe and several hundred gifts to area students impacted by the flow.
“It’s the children that are very sad … and heart broken not knowing and understanding what the lava is about, what it’s doing,” Kong said. “We’re so tied up in our own adult minds that we forget about the children.”
Since the new flow broke out from the lava tube along a crack system on Nov. 19, it’s rate of advancement has varied from less than 110 yards per day to more than 490 yards per day, the U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said, noting that the flow now stretches 5 miles downslope from the crack system area. That equates to the flow advancing an average of 330 yards per day.
However, the flow’s rate of advancement has slowed during the past days. Between Monday and Tuesday, the flow advanced 275 yards and between Tuesday and Wednesday, it advanced about 220 yards.
Oliveira and scientists said they did not want to speculate on the cause for the decrease in advancement. However, Oliveira noted that topography along the steepest line of descent, which includes 10-to-15-foot-high mounds of solidified lava from previous flows, and breakouts upslope may be having some affect.
Upslope of the leading edge, which is currently about 250 yards wide, numerous breakouts were seen on the north side of the flow, as well as on the actual surface of the flow, Oliveira said. The most significant breakout was seen about 2 miles upslope of the flow front where a “fairly active” ribbon of lava about 10 yards wide extended about 300 yards downslope.
Meanwhile, many Puna residents and visitors got their first look of stalled portions of the flow Wednesday as the county opened Apaa Street to public access.
Emily Henry of Leilani Estates said seeing the flow from the closed Pahoa transfer station was more emotional than she expected.
“It’s overwhelming,” she said. “To see it right here, it’s amazing.”
Hawaii Tribune-Herald reporter Tom Callis contributed to this report.