KAILUA-KONA — The National Park Service and state Department of Transportation have signed an agreement to prepare Chain of Craters-Kalapana Road as an evacuation route through Hawaii Volcanoes National Park should Highway 130 be cut off by lava from the Kilauea eruption.
Work began Wednesday to remove a 0.7-mile-wide section of solidified lava from the now-defunct 61g lava flow that covered the emergency road in 2016-17.
Rough grading and other reconstruction efforts to make the 8-mile coastal road passable are expected to take two weeks or less. Goodfellows Bros is doing the rough grading work on Chain of Craters Road.
The route is for evacuation purposes only, and will not be an alternate route for travel to and from the Kalapana area.
Measures will be taken to prevent adverse impacts to the natural and cultural resources within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. These include a thorough inspection of all vehicles and equipment for invasive species including little fire ants and coqui frogs.
Chain of Craters Road spans 19 miles from the summit area of Kilauea Volcano to the Holei Sea Arch in the National Park. The 8-mile section (Chain of Craters-Kalapana Road) along the coast that once connected the park to Kalapana has been closed for years, but was recently reconstructed as an evacuation route in 2014. It was covered in lava in 2016 and 2017. Opened in 1965, the road has been blocked by lava for 41 of its 53-year existence.
Goodfellows Bros also worked to clear the emergency route in the 2014 Pu‘u ‘O‘o lava flow.