By JOHN BURNETT Hawaii Tribune-Herald
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A week-and-a-half after episode 41 of Kilauea’s yearlong summit eruption deposited tephra — lightweight volcanic glass debris — over a sizable area surrounding Halema‘uma‘u crater, residents of Volcano are still digging out.

The latest eruptive phase lasted just eight hours on Saturday, Jan. 24, but explosive fountaining sent ash and volcanic gas several miles into the air and volcano goddess Madame Pele left calling cards in abundance.

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“We had 250 reports, people reporting tephra, ashfall on their property,” said Bill Hanson, Hawaii County Civil Defense administrative officer. “There were reports from as far away as Hilo, but they were reports to inform us it was happening, not ‘Hey, can you help me clean up my roof?’ However, Mauna Loa Estates, heavily hit, Royal Hawaiian Estates, Olaa. In Volcano village and the golf course area it was lighter, because the wind wasn’t blowing in that direction.

“You had inches on the roads; you had inches on people’s houses in the Mauna Loa Estates area.”

While the fountaining was spectacular, Hanson said the eruption created no actual damage, and added that tephra “is light, like Styrofoam.”

“As far as it denting anything, I don’t think so,” he said. “Nobody reported damages, but a lot of people reported debris — from their roofs, from their gutters, on the ground. Just the nuisance of it all, right?”

Hanson said there’s no federal funding available for those needing cleanup of their roofs, yards and catchment tanks, but there are volunteers helping with site assessment and possible cleanup help for kupuna and the disabled who are unable to access their roofs. Cooper Center in Volcano also has a button on its internet home page that provides a list of commercial cleanup firms for roofs and gutters.

It’s not just the elderly and infirm who might need an experienced hand helping with the cleanup.

Jesse Tunison, a 34-year-old photographer and videographer, posted on Facebook he broke a wrist in a 20-plus-foot fall while cleaning tephra from the roof of his family’s home in Volcano.

“I am OK, but definitely in a lot of pain,” Tunison said. “It looks like for the next few months I won’t be able to use my left hand at all, so that rules out video games, typing and other essential two handed behaviors.”

Jessica Ferracane, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park spokeswoman, said park staff “received several reports of minor cuts and abrasions from visitors.” She said tephra, ranging from small particles to about a foot wide, “covered everything downwind of it: roofs, trails, roads, vehicles and more.”

“Things are getting back to normal, but park staff continue to clean tephra off trails, roofs, gutters and other areas,” she said. “Cleanup of old Crater Rim Drive, which has been closed since 2007 but provides pedestrian and bike access to the east side of the summit near Keanakako‘i crater, is still blanketed in tephra, and we plan to clean that as well.”

Ferracane said the park has a large water catchment system serving the entire Kilauea summit area.

“Treated filtered water is stored in closed containers that are protected from ashfall. The large roofs that harvest the rainwater still need to be cleaned of tephra,” she said. “Our coastal backcountry areas with catchment systems (Halape, Keauhou, Ka‘aha) are mostly outside of the tephra fall. If they received any, it would be very light ash.”

According to Ferracane, HVNP is coordinating with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which is forecasting that episode 42 of the eruption could happen between Feb. 11 and Feb. 16.

“If we have tall tephra-laden lava fountains and light or southerly winds when the volcano erupts, this could happen all over again,” she said.

The county Department of Parks and Recreation said that ash and Pele’s hair in the pool forced the closure of the Pahoa Community Aquatic Center until further notice, and a contractor will be hired to perform a comprehensive cleaning of the pool basin and filtration system.

“It’s important to the public’s health and safety to conduct a thorough cleaning of the entire pool to ensure safe operation and use of the facility going forward,” said Clayton Honma, Parks and Rec director. “We appreciate the public’s patience during this closure and look forward to welcoming swimmers back to the pool when the project is complete.”

The debris clearing also is a major undertaking for residents as well as facilities.

“It took us two days to clean everything. It’s not just us, it’s everyone,” said Kai Robinson. “So many people here in Volcano are older, retired people and a lot of single people who can’t get up on roofs themselves, and a lot of people can’t afford to hire someone to do it. That is, if you can find someone to hire, because everyone’s in the same boat. My husband was able to get up on the lower section.

“Fortunately for us, we had some younger friends who could get up on the higher section of the roof with a backpack blower. And that’s what you needed, a blower, rather than a broom. Something like a leaf-blower.”

Robinson, like others who are experienced at living near a volcano, disconnect the roof water collector from the catchment tank itself.

“It took us a long time to get the roof and the gutters clean,” she said. “It took two full days and another half a day.”We had to power-wash the gutters, and that uses water, and we were not collecting water. So, thank goodness our tank was full and it’s a decent-sized tank. But we haven’t had any significant rain since the event, and we’re hoping for some rain to do a final flush of our roof and our gutters, a nice heavy rain, so we can connect our catchment back up.

“But you know, it’s not like we’re in the path of a lava flow and lost our house. It’s just annoying. You’ve got to put it into perspective.”

Novelist Tom Peek and his wife, artist Catherine Robbins, also live in Volcano. He waxed poetic about “the drumming of the tephra pummeling the roof of the house, the roof of the carport, and hitting all the vegetation — the ferns and the trees.

“Catherine and I have both been eruption rangers,” Peek said. “We’ve experienced a lot of volcanic activity from the early ’90s to the present. But it’s the first time we’ve experienced a tephra fall in our yard. And it was an amazing, unique experience. But now, we have the nuisance of having to clean that all up, because we’re on catchment.”

Peek said walking or driving on tephra creates a sound “like popcorn.”

“You can continue to hear the magical sound of tephra falling from the forest. That’s happened over the past several days, whenever there’s a wind. The plants, the trees, the ferns are still all covered with tephra. And it’s amazing walking through the forest and hearing the crunching under your feet.

“When the cat comes in, we have to brush her off to make sure there’s not Pele’s hair or tephra in her coat.”

And with the Merrie Monarch Festival’s hula competition just two months away, Peek said the ongoing eruption should inspire reverence for Pele, whose legend is central to hula.

“It may be modern times, but we still have a primal force that’s very creative in her process of building the islands,” he said.

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.