11-13-2018, 04:17 AM
That sort of says it all, doesn't it?
HPIA was created by state in a knee jerk reaction to Kalapana burning and the insurance companies balking at the prospect of continuing to insure in hazardous areas. Where initially HPIA may have been for those already in place it became the blanket by which everyone covered their eyes and denied reality while encouraging further development high risk areas.
Now the state has to realize what the insurance companies did all those years ago.. it is untenable to promote, to invest in, to develop in volcanically active areas.
I am curious how this will trickle down to other areas... how this will effect further development in places like HOVE, which is very likely to be inundated sooner rather than later. And, when we look at the geology, we can take that even further as we realize that Hilo and Kona are also in natures destructive path.
I think living on Hawaii Island is great. I feel very lucky to have spent my life here. But I also feel it would serve us all better if government on all levels officially recognized the fact that the island is made up of volcanoes and some of them are very active.
To start, I think the USGS Map Showing Lava-Flow Hazard Zones, Island of Hawaii, available at https://pubs.usgs.gov/mf/1992/2193/ should be a central part of our planning and we should have codes developed specifically for each zone. Further we should have taxes that are collected and set aside to deal with each eventuality we face so as to (hopefully) mitigate the humbug caused by not being prepared when an eruption occurs. Then, maybe, we could have an awe inspiring act of nature that we all get to enjoy rather than a disaster.
I believe this would serve all of us much better than the hands off approach state and county applied when the USGS first published their Hazards Zone Map. Then everyone deferred to realtors, hoping they would represent the dangers in specific zones and the public would limit their own exposure and not move in mass into hazardous areas. This proved to not be the case. Realtors continued to push properties and buyers avoided taking the dangers seriously. And HPIA was the ticket that bought us all the dream that all would be fine...
HPIA was created by state in a knee jerk reaction to Kalapana burning and the insurance companies balking at the prospect of continuing to insure in hazardous areas. Where initially HPIA may have been for those already in place it became the blanket by which everyone covered their eyes and denied reality while encouraging further development high risk areas.
Now the state has to realize what the insurance companies did all those years ago.. it is untenable to promote, to invest in, to develop in volcanically active areas.
I am curious how this will trickle down to other areas... how this will effect further development in places like HOVE, which is very likely to be inundated sooner rather than later. And, when we look at the geology, we can take that even further as we realize that Hilo and Kona are also in natures destructive path.
I think living on Hawaii Island is great. I feel very lucky to have spent my life here. But I also feel it would serve us all better if government on all levels officially recognized the fact that the island is made up of volcanoes and some of them are very active.
To start, I think the USGS Map Showing Lava-Flow Hazard Zones, Island of Hawaii, available at https://pubs.usgs.gov/mf/1992/2193/ should be a central part of our planning and we should have codes developed specifically for each zone. Further we should have taxes that are collected and set aside to deal with each eventuality we face so as to (hopefully) mitigate the humbug caused by not being prepared when an eruption occurs. Then, maybe, we could have an awe inspiring act of nature that we all get to enjoy rather than a disaster.
I believe this would serve all of us much better than the hands off approach state and county applied when the USGS first published their Hazards Zone Map. Then everyone deferred to realtors, hoping they would represent the dangers in specific zones and the public would limit their own exposure and not move in mass into hazardous areas. This proved to not be the case. Realtors continued to push properties and buyers avoided taking the dangers seriously. And HPIA was the ticket that bought us all the dream that all would be fine...