Another Quick Update for my Friends

We are fine. It's 8 pm and we've had another 2 inches of rain since 7 am. That's not bad at all. It has been raining off and on all day. Very little wind. It's just gently blowing the trees. So far, so good. We can hear the sound of strong wind that's somewhere, but it's either higher up the mountain, over toward Oceanview, or simply higher in the sky. It's not here on the farm. 

"E" texted me to ask if we are out of electricity. No. One of the benefits of being off grid is that we don't notice when the world around us loses power. Our system keeps on functioning. But we haven't had sun in two days, so tomorrow we will need to run the generator in order to charge up the battery bank.

I drove into Naalehu today and it was a ghost town. Only 4 businesses open -- Shaka Restaurant, the Wiki gas station, Ace Hardware, and the Will & Grace grocery. The bank, bakery, post office, school, and everything else closed. No tourists. No locals either. I was the only vehicle in the parking lot. Everyone must be at home honkered down for the storm.  

There are spots around the island that have gotten heavy rain, up to 19 inches, but most areas are 2" to 8". Here and there are reported small landslides. The gulches and waterfalls are raging, draining the excess rainwater. Low lying areas of Hilo are flooded, but that's no surprise. 

"L", the answer is no. The rain won't put out the volcano eruption. The eruption is massive, the lava extremely hot and forceful. The rain, no matter how heavy, will not effect the eruption at all. It's like spitting into the ocean and expecting it to affect the tides. Anyway, the eruption is paused for now. No new lava flows. But the rain should help control the wildfires that we have been seeing. While it may not totally extinguish the fires, it will surely help contain them and get things under control. It will also discourage new fires for a few days.