Blast from the past - Lava diversion 1935-style

[ironyak]

Ah simpler times, when any threat could be addressed with a bombing run. Seemed worth a shot (and at least they tried something, anything really)

https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2020/02/21...ava-field/

Local adventurer Kawika Singson says he was hiking on the slopes of Mauna [Loa] when he came upon what he calls the discovery of a lifetime.

"Once and awhile, people will find a little mortar round or a grenade. Well, I found a 600 pound bomb," exclaimed Singson.
[...]
Back in December 1935, the Army dropped 20, 600-pound demolition bombs on an erupting Mauna Loa, in hopes of diverting the lava flows that were moving fast toward Hilo town.

The military used that strategy again in 1942.

"I counted eight bomb craters. Bombs that hit the ground and exploded. And I found two bombs, so there was a total of 10 bombs within a hundred yard radius," Singson said.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

There are always some one hit blunders among the oldies, aren’t there?

We really live on a big island don’t we, when you realize an area like that can remain undiscovered for 90 years? The military will now go out there, clean up the area by creating two more craters, then find, open the original file and add an addendum - - lava diversion partially incomplete due to unexploded ordinance.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

More details about the “bomb” found on Mauna Loa last month, it was a smoke bomb:

Fearing it would reach the town and its watershed, Thomas Jaggar, the founder and first director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, called on the Army Air Corps. On Dec. 27, 10 Keystone B-3 and B-4 biplane bombers struck the lava flow, targeting its tubes and channels.

Half these bombs were packed with 355 pounds of TNT. The other half were not explosive, and instead designed to emit smoke so the pilots could see where the bona fide bombs landed. Mr. Singson found one of those inert devices last month.

Bombing Mauna Loa’s lava flows will always be a fraught proposition. But in a sufficiently dire situation, Dr. Lockwood said, we may again see a day when a Mauna Loa lava flow is greeted by explosive military might.

“It would require martial law, effectively, and an emergency declaration. But I suspect it would be done,” Dr. Lockwood said. Although, he added, “that might depend on the moxie of the governor, and which brickbats they were willing to tolerate.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/scien...awaii.html

[EightFingers]

“moxie of the governor”

I LOLed a little....


Puna: Our roosters crow first