On the morning of November 28th 2022, 4:30 am to be exact, I was awakened by my son. His words froze my bones; “Mom, the volcano is erupting.” Tell me that wouldn’t freeze you too.
I jumped out of bed and ran down to gather with other family members and looked up the hill [mountain side] I live on. A red glow pinpointed the eruption. This was scarier than my son’s words. It looked a bit fuzzy at first and I realized I had jumped out of bed and run down so fast, I’d left my glasses on my night stand. The red glow, not unlike the fires of Mordor, pulsated above us.
The USGS had been issuing updates for weeks, usually saying no eruption imminent so this was not totally unexpected. My “go bag” with important papers was ready and I just had to throw in my meds. And of course, my laptop and charger.
We were all bothered that no alert had been issued. None of us had gotten any word from the county or state. The eruption had started at about 11:30 the night before. It was early risers here that noticed the red glow and alerted everyone.
For insight into how vulnerable this made us feel here’s some facts; A lava flow from around 1968 is only less than half a mile from our house. It flowed from the top to the sea within three hours. We didn’t hear about this eruption until a full four hours had passed, and that was because my son gets up early for work.
We were lucky though. Mauna Loa was kind to us. Tutu Pele sent the lava in the opposite direction from us; to the north east. Tutu Pele was even nicer and now the lava has stopped and no homes or people were impacted. If you have to live through an erupting volcano, this is the one you want.
