Noise from above
At 6:04 a.m., our first helicopter roared over, circled and headed southwest. It heralds the swarms of flights that will crisscross the skies and circle relentlessly for the next nine hours.
Lower Puna is now a No. 1 tourist attraction, with incandescent magma fountains and blackened land and lava.
The continual roar of helicopters is physically painful after listening to the jet-engine-like noise of fissure 8 for two weeks.
Night has turned into day — a hellish red glow lights the sky as lava fountains hundreds of feet. We live daily with the fear our home will be next. We have survivors’ guilt and grieve for the wreckage of the subdivision where others lost so much.
We have seen lava brush the homes of friends and neighbors, setting them on fire and ultimately burying them in black rock. Whole streets of green yards and family homes are gone, replaced by walls of lava and debris. It advances relentlessly.
It’s heartbreaking and numbing and represents so much tragedy for hundreds of people, and we cannot come to grips with the magnitude except to be worn down, dazed and deeply hurting for all in its path.
This disaster should not become a hot spot for overflights and tourism from Kapoho to Leilani Estates.
The continual battering by helicopter noise inescapably overhead is not the quiet and respect we deserve. To all commercial tourist-oriented helicopter owners/operators: Please help us. Limit your flights and your intrusion.
We didn’t ask to be at the center of one of the worst natural disasters to hit the Big Island in recent history, but here we are. We have nowhere else to go and are trying to stay. Please give us our airspace back and have some empathy for our need for peace.
Jean Graham
Pahoa
‘Mad Max’ in Nanawale
I’m one block away from Forest Road in Nanawale Estates, and ever since the lava breakout, I’ve never seen so many cars on our little street.
Many of the drivers have either never driven on a graded, unimproved road before or simply didn’t care if they damaged the surface. Grrrrr!
On Forest Road where friends live, the traffic there is nonstop nutty — what one described as “Mad Max.” About one-half mile past them, the road has potholes large enough to turn back anybody not in a four-wheel drive vehicle, the path some are trying to take to bypass the roadblock on Highway 132.
One neighbor suggested to a state worker who was patrolling the area that Nanawale residents be given placards to keep out the undesirables who are watching for abandoned homes and lava tourists. He said they put up barricades, but they go right around them. And while the state is putting up more signs, they’ll probably be ignored.
The only problem with placards is some have been stolen. If tourists are that determined to enter potentially hazardous zones just to see lava, have them sign “NOK” (next of kin) forms, agreeing that if they find themselves unable to get out alive, state and county workers will not risk their lives to save theirs.
That might deter a few of them. If they decide to go anyway, leave them with this: “If you want to see lava that badly, then lava might be the last thing you’ll ever see. Aloha.” Let’s see how the tourist bureau digests that!
The county stated that residents are on their own if they go where they shouldn’t, so why not extend it to tourists? They can watch videos like the rest of us.
Dave Kisor
Pahoa