Thursday, May 10, 2018

Getting Prepared for An Eruption

Things are starting to look a bit more serious. The Volcanoes National Park is closing all park facilities on the Kilaeua side of the the park, siting a possible summit eruption. I know of several people who live in Volcano village, adjacent to the park, who plan to evacuate this coming weekend. 

What am I doing this weekend to make the farm prepared? 
...buying a 10 day supply of hay cubes. I don't think we will see a lot of ash here, but you never know. If we do, I'd like the pregnant ewes and goats to be eating half cubes, half pasture in order to reduce their exposure to ash. There is some anecdotal thought that consuming a lot of volcanic ash may cause miscarriage in early pregnancies. 
...check the baking soda supply. We use it to adjust the pH of our catchment water. 
...make water diverters for the various downspouts in our rainwater collection systems. If we do get an ashfall, we don't want it to be washed into our holding tanks. We will divert water until the ash stops and we wash the rooves and raingutters. 
...buy replacement air filters for our various equipment, especially the back up generator. 
...wash all the laundry so that I won't need to run the wash machine during the ashfall. The ash will be a fine abrasive that will cause quite a bit of needless wear. Our wash machine resides outdoors, one of the benefits of living in the tropics. I'll cover the machine well to prevent ash. 
...cover the ATVs, move all other equipment into protective storage -- an effort to prevent fine ash from infiltrating the parts. 
...go help a neighbor install water diverters on her rain downspouts. 

2 comments:

  1. An interesting preparedness checklist, for this mainlander anyway. Hopefully you won't need it but if you do, the effort is invaluable!

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  2. Leigh, I'm pretty much prepared already for just about anything. I've got plenty of food & water. Plenty of just about everything. And besides, supplies will get to stores even if the volcano acts up big time. It will be business as usual everywhere on the island except for those close to the eruptions. The farm is located 45 miles from the volcano summit and not in a straight line. I've got the flank of Mauna Loa between me and Kilaeua. So we are protected except from the SO2 vog and lightweight ash.

    When I lived in NJ, when a storm threatened everyone ran out to buy milk, bread, and toilet paper. Around here people run out to buy beer, spam, and toilet paper. Toilet paper must be the universal emergency necessity. As for this pending eruption, people don't seem to be rushing to buy anything. They know that the stores will be open and accessible. We are far enough away.

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