#68 - KILAUEA VOLCANO UPDATE
Before I even start this posting, I want to show you a little of the video that was shot on the Big Island the other night.
This is a short clip of a Lava Fountain at one of the fissures that was tossing up molten hot lava several hundred feet into the air past the treetops. Some of it easily reaching as high as 500 feet in the air.
A lot has been happening over on the Big Island of Hawaii and there are a lot of YouTube videos out there talking about how dire the situation in Hawaii is, and that the government is not doing anything to rescue the people. There are even comments that the government need to bring in Navy ships to evacuate the island.
This really infuriates me when I read these posts and watch these videos, because clearly the posters and people producing the videos have no freaking clue what they are talking about.
Yes it is true that Kilauea Volcano is erupting, it has been continually erupting for the past 35 years since 1983, before many of those blog posters and video producers were even born. So where was the outcry for mass evacuations over the past 35 years as their parents came here for their vacations? Oh, yea, thats right, the "Social Justice Warrior" crusade had not kicked in and become a "thing" yet.
People are so brainwashed by the media fear-porn now that it is ridiculous. People actually believe that if Kilauea erupts, it will be devastating for the island and the state of Hawaii. From reading their posts, the consensus is that the Big Island with either (a) blow up, or the more popular (b) sink into the ocean, either way killing everyone on the island.
Both of these two possible outcomes to Kilauea erupting is utter nonsense and actually quite comical when you think about it. So, apparently people actually think that islands are like really big boats floating around out in the middle of the ocean that can just sink.
For those of you who think this way, let me clue you in on something you should have learned way back in elementary school. Islands do not float. They are the highest peaks of mountains that have formed on the floor of the ocean.
Ok, now that kindergarten has concluded, let's get on with the important matters.
Currently we have had a total of 102 earthquakes (as of 2:35 PM EST) on the Big Island today, measuring from 2.0 to 4.2 in magnitude, many of which have been over 3.0. So yes, Hawaii is still "Rocking and Rolling". It has been this way for almost two weeks now since the volcano started releasing lava farther down the East Rift Zone, but multiple earthquakes throughout the day are nothing new. Hawaii has always been one of the most seismically active locations on Earth.
Most of the fissures have become more or less inactive while fissure #6 locate near Leilanni Avenue in the Leilani Estates area has re-opened and has become the most active spewing lava and gasses.
Highway 11 near the Volcano National Park has developed cracks after one of the 3.5 earthquakes that happened earlier today. The highway remains open as the cracks do not pose a hazard at this time but the Department of Transportation is monitoring the situation closely.
What do I expect to happen? That is hard to say, but yes I do expect that Kilauea will have an explosive eruption caused by steam building up pressure inside as rocks continue to fall off the face of the crater and block gas release from within. Do I think it will be catastrophic for the island? Not at all. Unlike what the media has been force-feeding everyone with for the past couple weeks, it is not that big of a deal.
The exact same thing happened back in 1924, and it resulted in only a single death. The only reason that death occurred was because the violent eruptions had been occurring off and on over several days and there were a lot of people around the rim of the crater when it blew. One person was unlucky enough to be hit with a rock that was tossed out of the volcano.
If he would not have been standing right at the crater at the time, then there would have been no deaths at all from the "Massive Explosion" as it is being reported.
There was also the report of a roof of a store collapsing in under the weight of wet ask that had accumulated on top of it from the blast. Again, this was back in 1924, roofs of rural structures were not known for their fine quality construction, and it never said how old the building was before the eruption or if there might have already been previous damage to it from snow or ice. I have been in that area in the wintertime and have experienced several occasions with sleet blowing sideways up there. Perhaps it was rotted. We will never know, but that was the only reported damage from the incident.
So, we have a massive steam generated eruption that sends boulders the size of refrigerators high into the sky (just as they are predicting now) and we only have one building damaged, and one death of a stupid idiot that decided it was a good idea to stand right on the crater of the volcano while it is erupting.
Taking all of that into account, No, I am not concerned whatsoever about Kilauea blowing up the Big Island and killing everyone or it sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
Anyone who does think that way clearly has a very lose grip on reality in the first place.
As I have said many times over the past several days, this remains a very small, isolated incident in comparison to the size of the Big Island. It is only affecting about 5% of the island. The other 95% as well as the rest of the islands remain completely unaffected.
Until Next Time
ALoha & 73 from Hawaii
