Page 5 of Eruption
“Kilauea quakes—they’re all shivery and quick,ya? Like a setof waves, one after another, then dying off. That was the big one, wasn’t it?”
MacGregor nodded. “Yeah, kid,” Mac said, “what we just heard came from the big one.”
Lono leaned in and spoke in a low voice, even though no one was close enough to hear him: “Is there gonna be an eruption, Mac?”
MacGregor reached for the door of his truck. On it was a white circle with the lettersHVOin the center and the wordsHAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORYon the outside. But then he stopped. Lono looked up at him, eyes more troubled than before, a kid trying hard not to act scared but unable to carry it off. Lono said, “You can tell me if there is.”
Mac didn’t want to say anything that would scare him even more, but he didn’t want to lie to him either. “Come with me to my press conference,” he said, forcing a smile. “You might learn something.”
“Learning all the time from you, Mac man,” the boy said.
Of all the kids, Lono was the one Mac had most aggressively encouraged to become an intern at the observatory, recognizing from the start how fiercely bright this boy was despite average grades in school. He was always in search of approval from Mac that he’d never gotten from his father, who’d deserted him and his mother. It was why he’d done as much reading about volcanoes as he had and knew as much as he did.
But Lono glanced back at the other boys and shook his head. “Nah. You can call and tell me about it later. You gonna be here tomorrow?”
“Not sure right now.”
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Lono asked. “I can see you’re worried even if you’re not saying it.”
“You live here, you always worry about the big one,” Mac said, “whether it’s your job or not.”
MacGregor got in the truck, started the engine, and drove off toward the mountain, thinking about all the things he hadn’t said to Lono Akani, primarily how worried he actually was—and for good reason. Mauna Loa was just days away from its most violent eruption in a century, and John MacGregor, the geologist who headed the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, knew that and was about to announce it to the press. He’d always known this day would come, probably sooner rather than later. Now here it was.
Mac drove fast.
CHAPTER 3
Merrie Monarch Festival, Hilo, Hawai‘i
Beneath the ribbed ceiling of Hilo’s Edith Kanaka‘ole Stadium, the Tahitian drums pounded so loudly that the audience of three thousand felt the vibration in their seats. The announcer cried the traditional greeting: “Hookipa i na malihini, hanohano wahine e kane,distinguished ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our firsthalaus. From Wailuku… Tawaaa Nuuuuui!” A burst of wild applause as the first troupe of women shimmied onto the stage.
This was the Hula Kahiko event during the weeklong Merrie Monarch Festival, the most important hula competition in the Hawaiian Islands and a significant contributor to the local economy of Hilo.
As was his custom, Henry “Tako” Takayama, the stocky chief of Civil Defense in Hilo, stood at the back during the event ceremonies in his trademark aloha shirt and ready smile, shakinghands and welcoming people from all over the Big Island to the annual performance of ancient-style dances by Hawaiian hula schools. Even though his was not an elected job, he had the air of the campaigner about him, like a man who was always running for something.
His upbeat manner had served him well during his thirty years as Civil Defense chief. In that time, he had guided the community through multiple crises, among them a tsunami that wiped out a Boy Scout troop camped on a beach, the destructive hurricanes of 2014 and 2018, the lava flows from Mauna Loa and Kilauea that took out roads and destroyed houses, and the 2021 eruption on Kilauea that created a lava lake in a summit crater.
But few people glimpsed the tough, combative personality behind the smile. Tako was an ambitious and even ruthless civil servant with sharp elbows, fiercely protective of his position. Anyone, politician or not, trying to get something done on the east side of Hawai‘i had to go through him. No one could go around him.
In the stadium, Tako, chatting with state senator Ellen Kulani, felt the earthquake at once. So did Ellen. She looked at him and started to say something, but he cut her off with a grin and a wave of his hand.
“No big thing,” he said.
But the tremor continued, and a low murmur ran through the crowd. A lot of the people here today had come from other islands and weren’t used to Hilo’s earthquakes, certainly not three in a row like this. The drumming stopped. The dancers dropped their arms.
Tako Takayama had fully expected earthquakes all during the festival. A week before, he’d had lunch with MacGregor, thehaolehead of the volcano lab. MacGregor had taken him to the Ohana Grill, a nice place, and told him that a big eruption from Mauna Loa was coming, the first since 2022.
“Bigger than 1984,” MacGregor said. “Maybe the biggest in a hundred years.”
“You have my attention,” Tako said.
“HVO is constantly monitoring seismic imaging,” MacGregor said. “The latest shows increased activity, including a large volume of magma moving into the volcano.”
At that point it became Tako’s job to schedule a press conference, which he did, for later today. He’d done it reluctantly, though. Tako thought that an eruption on the north side of the volcano wouldn’t matter a damn to anybody in town. They’d have better sunsets for a while, the good life would go on, and all would once again be right in Tako’s world.
But he was a cautious man who considered every possibility, starting with the ones that affected him. He didn’t want this eruption to be a surprise or for people to think he had been caught off guard.
Eventually, being a practical man, Tako Takayama found a way to turn this situation to his advantage. He’d made a few calls.