Yes, West Hawaii Today columnist Dennis Gregory, friends, local folk, and visitors, frequent rains do bless Hilo’s landscape and makes it lush and green. Sometimes we measure downpours in feet. The rainy jungles and tree fern forests in the upper elevations beyond Hilo have impressed natives and travelers for decades. Brave adventurers of centuries past arrived to this lush island paddling their canoes, later on sailing ships, then steamships, and now by aircraft.
Why? Not for the rains but within and beyond this greenery, unusual volcanic landscapes have attracted them. With great awe, viewers gawked at strange and mystic-looking lava fountains. Scientists measured them, and tested them with voluminous and extensive reports. Native Hawaiians made offerings with dance, ohelo berries and lei, and some local guys tossed gifts of gin into Pele’s erupting pits. “Go lookee ‘n see” was the mindset of Hilo’s populace as they dashed 30 miles up the mountain to be the first to view a new eruption.
Living in Hilo, my family enjoyed many a picnic in those cool upper elevations. However, they got caught in the 1924 explosive eruption while picnicking on Kilauea’s western bluff overlooking Halemaumau. They were startled when a huge sinister-looking gray cloud belched loudly and billowed skyward from the crater blocking out the sun. Hastily and with some fear, my folks ran quickly, gathered up their picnic fare, dashed to their car, and hightailed down the mountain toward Hilo and safety.
Rain clouds moved in from the east. The gray volcanic ash cloud turned into muddy rain. Dad had to stop often to clear the windshield of thick mud. Mom wrote in her journal that lightning followed them on the electric wires of roadside power poles in the muddy rain. The kids were scared and dared not to cry. Their black Studebaker touring car had turned into a gray muddy mess.
Impressed by Hilo’s green beauty, Isabella Bird, a 19th century English world traveler, wrote, “Hilo is all that Honolulu wished it could be.” The mysterious volcanoes were on her “must see” list. To view them, she dressed like a man to ride on a reluctant nag to follow her guide on a narrow trail through rough jungle terrain, slept in grass shacks, and ate strange meals stirred up by a Chinese cook.
Missionary William Ellis traveled around the island by canoe taking a census of natives to determine the location for the first Christian Mission (Kailua-Kona), he wrote extensively about ongoing fields of erupting lava cones and the Hawaiians had designated Pele as their volcano goddess.
Growing up in Hilo’s lush environment, mom often reminded us that, “These rains make flowers bloom with fragrance, trees bear tasty fruit, rivers rush seaward over steep waterfalls, and frequent showers sweeten the sugar cane.”
Yes, Hilo is on the “wet east side” and balmy sunny Kailua-Kona sits on the “dry west side.” Presently inactive, iconic Mauna Kea, Hilo’s guardian, is the tallest single mountain in the world when measured from the ocean’s bottom. Centered on the island, it gathers rain-filled clouds and blesses Hilo with frequent downpours and many sprinkles. It can rain on one side of the street and not on the other. Almost as tall as Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa is its neighbor and volcanically active.
My folks came to Hawaii during WWI and later arrived in Hilo in 1920 where they lived for 38 years. Dad built our home on the corner of Kinoole and Lanikaula streets half a block from Waiakea’s Sugar Company’s sugar cane fields and railroad tracks — now subdivisions of the University of Hawaii, Hilo. From our windows we enjoyed views of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.
We had many weekend picnics at a beach or up at the volcano. A large parking lot had been built along the edge of Halemaumau within Kilauea’s crater and in 1934 Halemaumau erupted. We followed a long string of cars filled with people from Hilo wanting to go “lookee ‘n see.” We had a close-up view of the lava fountains within the crater. The parking lot was filled with cars. Nenes, the Hawaiian goose, wandered among the cars and pecked at shinny hubcaps. A short trail led to a viewing area with a safety railing at the crater’s edge. We had a good time hanging on the railing, fascinated by the red lava inferno below with dancing fountains splattering high within the crater’s walls.
Seven years later upon the beginning of WWII, Dec. 7, 1941, all of the Territory of Hawaii was placed under martial law with stringent rules. Schools closed for four months, friends and classmates disappeared to mainland internment camps, complete blackouts demanded no light was to be seen from outside. Block wardens cruised neighborhoods looking for offenders. A stringent curfew kept everyone at home at night. We had few troops to protect us. A Japanese submarine shelled Hilo’s harbor on one night and did little damage.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of troops arrived on the island for our protection, training and eventual deployment into the Pacific’s war zones. Hastily built billets popped up throughout neighborhoods. Our airport had been expanded and a small squadron of B-18 bombers were stationed there. Complete blackouts and curfews remained, yet local ladies started a USO for local people to socialize with the servicemen.
However, before 1942 was over, Makuaweoweo, Mauna Loa’s large crater decided to erupt on the northeast rift. The whole sky was aglow for many nights. We could see the red lava fountains dancing upon the ridge from our front lawn and certainly the enemy could pinpoint and destroy our military installations. Madame Pele cancelled our blackouts and placed the island in a spotlight. Subsequently, authorities feared that lava was flowing toward Hilo and decided that the B-18 pilots should bomb the tongue of the downhill flow. The coconut wireless, a rumor machine, said that the Hawaiians thought it a bad idea to try to stop Pele, because certainly those involved would meet a violent death.
The flow was bombed. Its course was changed and Hilo’s populace felt safe again. The show and glow was over. We knew some of those pilots. They felt that bombing the lava flow was just another training exercise for the ongoing war.
Our volcanoes still erupt. “Pele giveth and Pele taketh away.” Some come and go in the Volcanoes National Park. But in the 1980s attention was directed toward Puna. Kalapana’s picture postcard black sand beaches were inundated by lava and destroyed and homes lost. Presently people living and working in the Pahoa area live warily. It still rains in Hilo as Pele keeps claiming land and wants the ocean.
Pat Lindgren Kurtz is a resident of Kailua-Kona who grew up in Hilo.