Page 8 of Eruption
“According to the data we have gathered and analyzed, this eruption will most likely occur at the summit caldera,” MacGregor continued, “which means that the city of Hilo should not be affected. Now I’m happy to take any questions you have.”
The hands went up. Mac didn’t do a lot of major press conferences, but he knew the rules of the road, one of which was that local news always got the first question.
He pointed to Marsha Keilani, the reporter from KHON in Hilo. “Mac, you said a ‘fairly large eruption.’ Just how large, exactly?” She smiled. “Asking for some friends.”
“We expect it to be at least as large as the 1984 eruption that produced half a billion cubic meters of lava and covered sixteen square miles in three weeks,” he said. “In fact, this eruption may be much larger, perhaps as large as the eruption of 1950. We just don’t know at this point.”
“But you obviously have an idea about timing or we wouldn’t be here,” she said. “Soarewe talking about two weeks? Or sooner?”
“Could be sooner, yes. We’ve been combing through all the data, but there’s still no way to predict the exact timing of an eruption.” He shrugged. “We’re just not sure.”
Keo Hokulani from theHonolulu Star-Advertiserwas next. “Dr. MacGregor, aren’t you hedging a little? You have very sophisticated equipment here. You’re quite sure of the size and timing, aren’t you?” Keo knew that because he’d toured the HVO a few months earlier. He’d seen all the latest computer models and projections and knew his stuff.
“As you know, Keo, Mauna Loa is one of the most intensely studied volcanoes in the world. We have tiltmeters and seismometers all over it, drones flying thermal cameras, satellite data in thirty-six frequencies, radar, and visible- and infrared-light sensors.” He shrugged and grinned. “Having said that, yeah, I am hedging.” They all laughed. “Volcanoes are a little—or a lot—like wild animals. It’s difficult and dangerous to predict how they’ll behave.”
Wendy Watanabe from one of the Honolulu TV stations raised a hand.
“In the 1984 eruption,” she said, “lava came quite close to Hilo, and people felt threatened. So are you saying that this time there is no danger to Hilo?”
“That’s correct,” MacGregor said. “The lava in ’84 came within four miles of Hilo, but the main lava flows were east. As I said, this time we expect most of the lava to flow away from Hilo.” He turned and pointed at the map, feeling like a weatherman on the local news. “This means it will flow down the north slope into the center of the island, the saddle between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. This is a big and—fortunately—largely uninhabited area. Mauna Kea Science Reserve has several observatories at twelve thousand feet, and the army runs a large training area over there, at six thousand feet, but that’s all. So I want to reiterate: This eruption will not threaten Hilo residents.”
Wendy Watanabe put up her hand again. “At what point will HVO raise the volcano alert level?”
“While Mauna Loa is at elevated unrest, the level remains at advisory/yellow,” MacGregor said. “We remain focused on the northeast rift zone.”
A reporter he didn’t recognize asked, “Will Mauna Kea erupt as well?”
“No. Mauna Kea is dormant. It hasn’t erupted for about four thousand years. As you know, the Big Island has five volcanoes, but only two are currently active.”
Standing by his side, Jenny Kimura gave a quiet sigh of relief and smiled. It was going as well as she could have hoped. The reporters weren’t being sensationalistic, and Mac seemed comfortable, sure of himself and his information. He was speaking effortlessly, sliding past the issues they didn’t want to cover. She thought he’d handled questions about the size of the eruption particularly well.
Mac had managed to stay on point and not stray into the weeds like he sometimes did. Jenny knew her chief’s tendencies. Before coming to Hawai‘i, John MacGregor had been a member of the United States Geological Survey advisory team, which was sent all over the planet to wherever there was an impending eruption. Starting in his student days, he’d been present at all the famous ones. MacGregor had been at Eyjafjallajökull and Mount Merapi in 2010, Puyehue-Cordón Caulle in 2011, Anak Krakatau in 2018, and Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai in 2022. And he had seen very bad things. All because, as he put it, “People waited too long, which means until it was too late.”
MacGregor’s experiences had left him with a blunt, chin-out, do-it-now attitude and a willingness to plan for worst-case scenarios. He was a cautious scientist but a quick, decisiveadministrator who tended to act first and worry about consequences later. He was that sure of himself.
Mac was extremely well respected at HVO, but sometimes Jenny was left to pick up the pieces after his shotgun decisions. She couldn’t remember how many times she had said, “Uh, well…” after hearing one of his spontaneous ideas.
But no one could argue that he wasn’t generous or didn’t care about people. He’d been a troubled kid himself, which was why he’d become a surfing coach for local troubled kids. While coaching the boys, he tried to motivate some of them to work harder at school and others to stay in school; he’d even gotten a few of them into the intern program at HVO. And he always followed their careers after they left HVO for various universities.
And then there was his unmatched experience. Everybody else on the HVO staff had seen these famous eruptions on videotape. MacGregor had been there. If he was acting this quickly and decisively now, he had his reasons. He’d been there. He knew.
He also knew enough not to explain in detail that HVO was tracking the biggest eruption in a century—that would only have caused a panic, no matter which side of the volcano was going to blow.
There was one other thing that Mac knew and Jenny knew but the media didn’t.
John MacGregor was lying his ass off.
He knew exactly when the eruption was coming, and it wasn’t two weeks or even one.
Five days.
And counting.
CHAPTER 6
The press conference was winding down.
MacGregor had felt more relaxed the longer it had gone, knowing he was giving them more information than they needed. He explained now that the Hawaiian Islands were on a hot spot built by a mantle plume—a hole in the ocean floor, through which magma flowed intermittently. The magma cooled as it rose, making a dome of lava that slowly grew until it broke the surface of the ocean as an island. As each island was built up, the shifting of the Pacific Plate moved it north and west, leaving behind the hot spot, where a new island began forming.