with Joe Moore, Hawaii's number one news.
Good evening, thank you for joining us on this Wednesday, the 2nd of May. Lava that
has been slowly devouring homes on the Big Island continues to creep toward the heart
of old Kalapana tonight, and civil defense officials are preparing for another round
of evacuations. Our Ray Lovell has been keeping an eye on developments near the lava flow.
He joins us live now, satellite live. Ray?
Joe, we're back on the old Kalapana Highway 137, about the same spot where we were at
6 o'clock tonight, at some 200 yards from what we might call the heart of old Kalapana,
Walter's store and drive-in. The lava has not advanced up the road very much since then.
It's going across the road, and one thing that's got us a little edgy right now is that
a couple of the utility poles back there are burning, and we're kind of hoping when they
fall they fall away from the road, especially the spot where we're standing. We'll have
Bruce Barham to go in and get some tight shots of this lava that's moving across the road.
As I said, we're about 200 yards from Walter's store, and there's a kind of party going on
there tonight. He's going to stay open until midnight, because tomorrow morning we're told
trucks will be coming in to move equipment out of the store, and tonight about midnight
the police lines that are set up, the road blocks that are set up in front of that store,
will be moved further back. We don't know exactly what that means for our future broadcast,
but we will get the cameras as close as the Civil Defense and police officials allow us
to do. At night, the lava has a strange effect. It's burning pavement on the road, it's burning
trees, and this isn't the red flowing rivers like we have seen in the past reports we have
done on the Kilauea eruption. This is a slow moving blob that keeps inching closer and
closer to some of the older buildings in Kalapana. At night, the burning glowing lava has an
eerie beauty, but in the daylight it's threatening and stark. This is the slow moving red and
gray mass that may bury all of Kalapana. In the past, when Kilauea was fountaining, putting
out glowing lava rivers, we reported on the beauty of the eruption. This flow has not
been described that way. It still is awesome, but it has destroyed people's homes. More
of them burn today. As it moves toward the older part of Kalapana, Civil Defense Director
Harry Kim is preparing to order more evacuations, including Walter Yamaguchi's Kalapana store
and drive in. But Walter is bringing in more stock for his shelves, confident that the
volcano goddess Peli will not destroy his store. I'm not worried a bit. She's gonna
stop. You sure? I believe. I said so many times already, nobody can tell me what to
do. That's all in my heart. Across Beach Road from the store, final preparations are being
made to move the landmark star of the sea painted church. The Civil Defense Director
wants it ready to go by noon tomorrow and by nightfall tomorrow, all of Kalapana back
to the Harry K. Brown Park may be evacuated unless the lava flow stops. So far, it has
not. The lava continues moving across the highway. In fact, it's kind of snaked across
the highway today, first moving toward the ocean, ponding and then moving back into a
low spot on the other side of the road. There's a slight uphill grade before you get to Walter's
store. How long it will take to fill in this low area and if it does, which way it will
go then is anybody's guess. But to be on the safe side, the evacuation of the area around
the store and the painted church will begin at midnight tonight. Live by a satellite scoop
from Kalapana, I'm Ray Level. Back to you, Joe. Ray, just a final thought, not as your
colleague now, but as your friend move away from those utility poles, huh? Yeah, and also
from the methane explosions. Thanks, Joe. I appreciate the advice. Okay, Ray, we'll
talk to you tomorrow. Thank you for the live update. Two schools on the Big Island will
remain closed tomorrow because of a landfill fire that is still smoldering at this hour.
The fire broke out yesterday at a landfill near Kona, causing classes to be canceled
at the Kealakehe Elementary and Intermediate schools. State health officials were concerned
about the possibility of toxins in the smoke from the fire, but so far no harmful fumes
have been identified. And similar to the latest, the 129th at three this afternoon. Tonight
five more are in the immediate path and could go anytime. News for you, Dalton Kananaka
reports from Kalapana. When the smoke cleared this morning, the only remaining beachside
access to Kalapana Gardens was gone. There is no way now to get to two dozen homes still
standing. There's nothing really left inside this subdivision. We're beyond the emergency
barricades now, going to take you onto a fresh flow. And in this isolation, we find another
house burning. This would be the 50th house to burn in a month. Powerless utility poles
fall like trees. Federal disaster officials could only poke at the power of the massive
flow. Lava is still a quarter mile away from the heart of town, where a store and two churches
provide the area's food for body and spirit. The lava front is being channeled by a coastline
bluff. And that bluff ends before the painted church, leading civil defense officials to
believe that lava would pour harmlessly into the ocean here. But that would be the first
finger. This glacier of lava is well over a third of a mile wide now. And even if only
that finger entered the ocean, the hydrochloric acid factor in proximity to the church would
make worshipping at that church impossible. And the lava continues to pour from Kilauea
volcano eight miles up slope. Geologists see nothing that's disrupting the destructive
pipeline. Dalton Tanunaka, News 4 in Kalapanap on the Big Island.