One year after the destructive Kilauea eruption, residents in Leilani Estates have a new problem on their hands - tourists:
. The lava also covered roads, making it impossible for survivors to drive back to their property.
“We all had this assumption we’d be fine, that we’d be back pretty quick. We never thought it would end like this," she adds., in what would become Hawaii's largest and most destructive volcano eruption in decades, thousands of residents and business owners are still struggling to put their lives back together. Hundreds can't return home or rebuild. Tourism is down and unemployment is up. The ground still steams in some places and major roads remain impassible.
Seifers, a school counselor, says she knows she's better off than many of her neighbors, because her house survived and she could go back to work. Reopening the road turned her 90-minute hike into a five-minute drive, and she wishes county officials would talk less and spend more.
The luck ran out on May 3, 2018, when underground magma began forcing its way to the surface. The next day it was pouring through Leilani Estates, a 700-home community with about 1,500 residents. Within days, dozens of lava vents had opened up, spewing magma high into the air and sending a slow-moving avalanche of molten rock downhill. The lava's intense heat set homes ablaze before it ever reached them, and then the liquid rock buried the flaming remains.
"To start over, in a new location at our age, it's not realistic," Deb Smith says. "We didn't have enough to rebuild what we had."Stan Smith eats a hardboiled egg while taking a break from inspecting and cleaning his property on Hawaii's Big Island. The Smith's fruit farm was... Today, even though the family's home is still standing, the insurance company has deemed it a total loss, largely because sulfur emissions have rotted away almost everything metal, from electrical sockets to frying pans, the nails in the siding and their appliances. That has meant paying out of pocket to make their home livable again.
After the eruption, Welch spent 121 days living in a shelter with her daughter, the lava creeping ever-closer to her 364-square-foot tiny home in Leilani Estates. The house survived but the gases ate away at the metal. "Basically, it's a graveyard. Everyone's memories are out there and I have so much guilt," she said. "It's still beautiful. It's still paradise. But it's different."County officials say recovery will take years. They say that despite complaints, they're moving quickly to restore access where it's safe. In many places, the ground is still warm to the touch, despite flows halting months ago.
Kim has emerged as the primary point of frustration among many Big Island residents who want to rebuild. Many residents say the government has no right to tell them how they can use their private property. The risks, they say, are theirs to take. If this were the mainland, maybe the hurricane-prone Florida Keys or a town in Tornado Alley, they say government officials would have quickly reopened roads and launched the rebuilding process.
But the lava flow destroyed or forced the vacancy of dozens of rental homes in the area, and now he's selling less artwork suitable for decorating a large home. Instead, the smaller number of customers he gets are buying $20-$40 items. “Nothing is selling. There’s no volume – but what we are selling are lava-centric items,” Markoff said from his gift shop.
"I keep waiting for Game of Thrones to call so they can come film here," she says with a laugh, her lava-bead bracelet clacking on her wrist. Authorities have cited or arrested 48 people for trespassing in the closure area, with the majority at nearby Lava Tree State Park and MacKenzie Recreation Area. Now, a watchman working for the homeowners association drives around the semi-abandoned neighborhood in a battered pickup, politely confronting anyone he doesn't recognize.
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