09-18-2019, 08:16 AM
I apologize in advance for a long post and potential rant #128556;
I know there has been recent talk of money being allocated for the building of temporary roads to assist homeowners who are still isolated from their homes due to the 2018 eruption. I do not know if we are to be included in this group or not. No one has ever contacted us except FEMA who calls periodically to see if we have access to our home yet, the response is still the same, sadly no!
Our Property and home are surrounded by Lava on the Kahukai Kipuka in Leilani Estates. My husband was last able to go to our home on May 24, 2018, besides a few aerial shots of the top of house and property mostly during or right after the eruption. We have not had any recent updates or photos of our home or property in almost a year. We moved into our home in January 2016, we then sold our previous home and paid off our Kahukai home in full on January 29, 2018, and then the volcanic eruption of May 2018 happened! This home in Leilani Estates was our retirement dream! We have heard many comment that homeowners who bought on the side of an active volcano should have anticipated this happening to them, why would they purchase a home there? The answer is simple “IT WAS BEAUTIFUL”! People choose to live in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Florida, the Carolina’s, Texas, Oklahoma, Northern California, (the list goes on and on), disasters happen. Yes, an eruption could possibly happen, however the subdivision had been there for 54 years. We are retired seniors, we thought if we had 10 years in paradise that was enough for us. We would like our other 8 years please! We don’t have years to wait for the powers to be to decide to rebuild a road so we can return home!
Why can't we get a temporary road into our property, so we can go home? So many other people in Puna are just like us, we have existing properties, we have existing homes we just can't get to them. Our home is still standing, we have not received an insurance payoff money, we have not received FEMA payoff money, we just sit and wait. While we wait surely our home suffers. The jungle takes over, the home and it’s contents start to disintegrate, the losses grow!
We thought Leilani Estates Association would help with a temporary road to our homes (since the association claims responsibility for road maintenance and repairs) however, it seemed repairs to other roads with some damage, road blocks, speed bumps, pavilion maintenance, community center renovations, and tourist situations take preference over getting homeowners back into their existing homes! How can there be disaster recovery when people are still displaced from their still standing homes. It has been suggested that the homeowners should put a substantial chunk of money into rebuilding the road so that the homeowners have “some skin in the game”! I guess the 100’s of thousands of dollars we’ve paid for our homes is not enough of our skin. I think the majority of homeowners in this situation would say “we unfortunately do not have a large chunk of money to put into building the road home, we wish we did, because we would gladly build that road and go home”.
Some people say to just walk in or helicopter in until a road can be built. Some homeowners do, some are not physically able to do that and many cannot afford to helicopter in. We contacted a local helicopter tour company who had taken a neighbor in for free about getting a free or discounted rate to go see our home. We were told they had ulterior motives for taking the neighbors in as they wanted to scout for possible tour sights on our Kipuka but that they would be happy to take us in for $2400. As much as we would love to see our home again $2400 is not in our fixed income budget.
We don’t want to sound or in fact be bitter about the situation. We are just hoping to put this out into the great internet beyond in hopes of finding a solution or some others in the same or similar situations so that we can come together and help each other. All of the homeowners on our Kipuka are seniors, we just want to find a solution before it’s too late, too late for us, too late for our homes!
Side note for those of you who have followed the tale of “Winky the One-eyed Lava Cat”, she too is anxious to go home. The snow will be falling soon in Northern California and she really prefers the Pahoa Climate #127774;
I know there has been recent talk of money being allocated for the building of temporary roads to assist homeowners who are still isolated from their homes due to the 2018 eruption. I do not know if we are to be included in this group or not. No one has ever contacted us except FEMA who calls periodically to see if we have access to our home yet, the response is still the same, sadly no!
Our Property and home are surrounded by Lava on the Kahukai Kipuka in Leilani Estates. My husband was last able to go to our home on May 24, 2018, besides a few aerial shots of the top of house and property mostly during or right after the eruption. We have not had any recent updates or photos of our home or property in almost a year. We moved into our home in January 2016, we then sold our previous home and paid off our Kahukai home in full on January 29, 2018, and then the volcanic eruption of May 2018 happened! This home in Leilani Estates was our retirement dream! We have heard many comment that homeowners who bought on the side of an active volcano should have anticipated this happening to them, why would they purchase a home there? The answer is simple “IT WAS BEAUTIFUL”! People choose to live in the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Florida, the Carolina’s, Texas, Oklahoma, Northern California, (the list goes on and on), disasters happen. Yes, an eruption could possibly happen, however the subdivision had been there for 54 years. We are retired seniors, we thought if we had 10 years in paradise that was enough for us. We would like our other 8 years please! We don’t have years to wait for the powers to be to decide to rebuild a road so we can return home!
Why can't we get a temporary road into our property, so we can go home? So many other people in Puna are just like us, we have existing properties, we have existing homes we just can't get to them. Our home is still standing, we have not received an insurance payoff money, we have not received FEMA payoff money, we just sit and wait. While we wait surely our home suffers. The jungle takes over, the home and it’s contents start to disintegrate, the losses grow!
We thought Leilani Estates Association would help with a temporary road to our homes (since the association claims responsibility for road maintenance and repairs) however, it seemed repairs to other roads with some damage, road blocks, speed bumps, pavilion maintenance, community center renovations, and tourist situations take preference over getting homeowners back into their existing homes! How can there be disaster recovery when people are still displaced from their still standing homes. It has been suggested that the homeowners should put a substantial chunk of money into rebuilding the road so that the homeowners have “some skin in the game”! I guess the 100’s of thousands of dollars we’ve paid for our homes is not enough of our skin. I think the majority of homeowners in this situation would say “we unfortunately do not have a large chunk of money to put into building the road home, we wish we did, because we would gladly build that road and go home”.
Some people say to just walk in or helicopter in until a road can be built. Some homeowners do, some are not physically able to do that and many cannot afford to helicopter in. We contacted a local helicopter tour company who had taken a neighbor in for free about getting a free or discounted rate to go see our home. We were told they had ulterior motives for taking the neighbors in as they wanted to scout for possible tour sights on our Kipuka but that they would be happy to take us in for $2400. As much as we would love to see our home again $2400 is not in our fixed income budget.
We don’t want to sound or in fact be bitter about the situation. We are just hoping to put this out into the great internet beyond in hopes of finding a solution or some others in the same or similar situations so that we can come together and help each other. All of the homeowners on our Kipuka are seniors, we just want to find a solution before it’s too late, too late for us, too late for our homes!
Side note for those of you who have followed the tale of “Winky the One-eyed Lava Cat”, she too is anxious to go home. The snow will be falling soon in Northern California and she really prefers the Pahoa Climate #127774;