Posts: 17
Threads: 1
Joined: Aug 2014
Thanks everyone for taking the time to share your thoughts, offering great insights, and recommendations. A friend and I will be volunteering our day today to cruise around Leilani Estates(?) and other areas. We will be offering help where it is requested/needed.
Time to get the boots on the ground! Enough talk already.
“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posts: 17
Threads: 1
Joined: Aug 2014
We finally got our okoles away from the chair and computer and cruised around Puna over the weekend. As we made our way down the hill I received a few calls and texts to assist those who might have needed the help. The first call we had trouble finding and did not get clear directions to the location, but we did find it eventually. We annoyingly denied the help, as it was obvious that the people who requested the service were only looking for a freebe cleanup of trees that weren't blocking any roads, etc. This is the sad side of Puna unfortunately. Take advantage of a free service instead of letting the resource go to where te help is really needed.
We decided to head down to Kapoho instead to help with cleanup over there, where the help was, and still is, much needed. From all of the places that we drove around it seemed like this was one of the hardest hit spots. Homes moved off of their foundations completely, rocks and boulders thrown through other homes with the intense wave action, and a few stories of very, very close brushes with death from surrounding residents. I.e. one lady who stayed in her home and ended up neck deep in water during the storm, others trying to swim INTO the water during the worst part of the storm to check on family, and even a tree coming down between two people and brushing them both with the branches.
It just shows how lucky people and the community really were during all of this. It could have been A LOT worse. No deaths, but there could have easily been many.
“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
