Sightseers, “loiterers” in eruption zone

[MarkD]

Apparently they nabbed about half a dozen yesterday, trying to view fountaining.

No surprise there, viewing moving lava, especially fountaining at night, ranks right up there with seeing a total solar eclipse. Two of the most mesmerizing sights in nature.

(An explanation here, not a justification for violating CD rules, though obviously there is overlap.)

A part of the problem is that every day we have had journalists--many on national television--conducting interviews while barely 1/2 mile behind them a stunningly beautiful lava fountain arcs into the sky.

Generally these journalists do not seem to be much bothered by the fumes, which CD says are seriously dangerous in the area. We know the fumes are highly variable depending on multiple factors, including wind.

Acceptable risk. Hence the presence of the journalists with CD approval.

We also know--or can pretty well deduce--what most of the millions of people seeing this footage are thinking: What I would give to be standing in that spot.

From now on let’s have all journalists conducting interviews in front of a burned out house or a hardened flow covering a road. Live lava footage can be shown without anyone in the picture.....

[leilanidude]

The ones they arrested were all not from here and were in areas that were off limits. I doubt that any of these folks are "real reporters" from any real news source.

[Justin]

I understood Mark to be making the point that its hypocritical to be closing off a subdivision to people who own/rent homes there because of "danger", yet putting smiling faces on TV in that closed-off area without any safety equipment.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

From now on let’s have

If the people arrested really wanted to help residents in the lava zone, they could have picked hundreds of actions more essential and appropriate than more pictures of their loss.

I alternate between thinking of the planet as home — dear and familiar stone hearth and garden — and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners. Today I favor the latter view. The word “sojourner”... invokes a nomadic people’s sense of vagrancy, a praying people’s knowledge of estrangement, a thinking people’s intuition of sharp loss: “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.” - Annie Dillard

[randomq]

Lava destruction viewing pass: $500 and liability waiver. xx% goes to affected residents, xx% to cover county costs, xx% to run the tours.

[generic user name]

Is that $500 per person or per vehicle? If it's per car than it's a bargain....
If this eruption continues well into the future people might want to wait an appropriate amount of time and then start a whole lava touring industry, with a portion of the proceeds going back into the community...if you're going to have looky-loos than you might as well squeeze some money outta them.

[MarkD]

Justin: "I understood Mark to be making the point that its hypocritical to be closing off a subdivision to people who own/rent homes there because of "danger", yet putting smiling faces on TV in that closed-off area without any safety equipment."

That was my 3rd point.

My 1st point is that there is a deep history of people traveling far to see one of nature's most awe inspiring sites: a volcanic eruption. Some comments from Samuel Clemens visiting Halemaumau in 1866.

"The greater part of the vast floor of the desert under us was as black as ink, and apparently smooth and level; but over a mile square of it was ringed and streaked and striped with a thousand branching streams of liquid and gorgeously brilliant fire! It looked like a colossal railroad map of the State of Massachusetts done in chain lightning on a midnight sky. Imagine it - imagine a coal-black sky shivered into a tangled network of angry fire!"

"A colossal column of cloud towered to a great height in the air immediately above the crater, and the outer swell of every one of its vast folds was dyed with a rich crimson luster...I thought it just possible that its like had not been seen since the children of Israel wandered on their long march through the desert so many centuries ago over a path illuminated by the mysterious "pillar of fire." And I was sure that I now had a vivid conception of what the majestic "pillar of fire" was like, which almost amounted to a revelation."

http://www.instanthawaii.com/cgi-bin/hi?Volcano.twain

Not the slightest surprise in my mind that lava vista seekers--derisively called "loiterers"--are seeking entry to the lava area, and will risk fines and arrest to see this natural event.

Sorry if my statements might egg these criminals on, but my observations pale to the matter of CD allowing journalists to do their newscasts right next to streaming lava, or barely 1/2 mile away from a giant fountain (in background). Most of the journalists can be observed to be spellbound by what they see.

And that's not egging people on to want the same lava access? And that's point #2.

[bystander]

You can blame the proliferation of lawyers since Twain's time and even 1955 for the authorities not letting sightseers near the lava. I remember going right up to molten lava as child in the 70s in HVNP. My rubber slippers started to melt where I was standing on not so cooled lava. People were throwing pennies in and scooping them out. Not so many lawsuits back them if someone did get hurt.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Not so many lawsuits back then

Exactly right.
If one of these thrill seekers gets injured in any way, he'll get a lawyer who will claim his client wasn't told it was dangerous, or his was told but not in a forceful enough manner that made him realize the severity of the danger, there were no warning signs, or the signs at the checkpoints weren't big enough, or he had to go around the checkpoints to sneak in so didn't see any signs which should have been posted where he sneaked in, other people did it...

Of course, the attorney he hires will need to pass the Hawaii bar, so, jobs for Hawaii.
Paid for by Big Island taxpayers, who probably have enough other expenses already created by the lava flow.

I alternate between thinking of the planet as home — dear and familiar stone hearth and garden — and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners. Today I favor the latter view. The word “sojourner”... invokes a nomadic people’s sense of vagrancy, a praying people’s knowledge of estrangement, a thinking people’s intuition of sharp loss: “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.” - Annie Dillard

[kalakoa]

a lawyer who will claim his client wasn't told it was dangerous, or his was told but not in a forceful enough manner that made him realize the severity of the danger, there were no warning signs

Yet, somehow, these were perfectly "legitimate" and "not dangerous":

"County required a building permit and inspections."

"State created an 'assigned-risk pool' so I could get insurance."

Ultimately, it's all "whatever they say it is" until later when they say "something different".

Leilani Estates phase 4: coming Spring 2029... reserve your lots now!