Mauna Loa's recognized eruptive pattern is a summit eruption followed—within hours, days, or months—by a flank eruption. In 1926, there was a brief summit eruption, followed by 14 days of eruption on the Southwest Rift Zone.
A flow from this rift zone passed through a South Kona forest, crossed the main road on April 16, and pooled behind the coastal village of Hoʻōpūloa.
Between 0400 and 0900 HST on April 18, the flow buried the village, wharf, and harbor and entered the ocean. This was HVO's first real experience with property destruction by a lava flow. The following account was compiled from Apple and Apple (1979), Finch (1926), Jaggar (1926a, b), Macdonald and Hubbard (1982), and unpublished sources.
Edward G. Wingate, USGS topographical engineer, was mapping the summit of Mauna Loa in 1926, changing campsites as the work progressed. On April 10, his camp was along the 3,475-m (11,400-ft) elevation, well into the desolate upload above the Kaʻū District. An earthquake wakened the campers about 0145; as they drifted back to sleep, a further series of quakes had them sitting up, talking, and wondering. About 0330, Wingate braved the cold and wind; with a blanket wrapped around him, he went outside and stood bathed in reddish light.
From his camp, Wingate had a wonderful view of plumes of gas lighted by the glow from below. They reached the flows around 0630. With his crew, Wingate mapped lava fountains, moving flows, steaking vents, and spewing cones.
The packer who kept Wingate's camps supplied with water, food, and firewood had spent the night on the trail on his way down to pick up another load; he reached the ʻĀinapō trailhead midafternoon on April 11. More than supplies awaited him—there was an HVO expedition demanding guide service to Wingate's camp. This was the first news of the eruption for the packer. The expedition consisted of Dr. Thomas Jaggar, topographer J.C. Beam, cook H. Yasunaka, and packers John Kama and Joe Kaipaloa.
After a night at ʻĀinapō, and with three additional park animals borrowed from Kapāpala Ranch, the expedition started up toward Wingate's camp. By mid-afternoon, they reached the camp, which Jaggar described as a primitive affair consisting of three tents and a cook shelter on the rough lava fields. The cook shelter was bolstered with stone walls to protect against wind, but all the tents had to tacked down to the pāhoehoe lava with spike nails.
For three days, the HVO party surveyed the sources of the eruption; they then descended and moved into the South Kona District, where roads, houses and other property were threatened by the lava flows. Wingate and his crew stayed behind. Much of the area already mapped was under fresh lava, and there was a lot of remapping to do.
On April 16, Jaggar scratched marks about a foot apart across the rutted, gravel road (the only road) between the Districts of South Kona and Kaʻū. A lava flow was approaching, and Jaggar wanted to measure the flow's speed as it crossed the road. Perhaps a hundred people were waiting around the Hoʻōpūloa Church, on the upfill side of the road, and at the Kanaana house opposite, on the downhill side of the road. They had seen and heard the flow, 4.5–6 m (15–20 ft) high and more than 150 m (500 ft) wide, as it moved through the forest uphill. When it neared the road, people who lived on the Kona side of the flow moved off to the north, and those who lived on the Kaʻū side moved to the south, so they could go home after the road was closed.
Jaggar recorded that it reached the uphill, inland side of the road at 1222 at an estimated speed of about 2 m per minute (7 ft per minute); within two minutes the road was crossed. Jaggar and his assistant, H.S. Palmer, stayed on the Kaʻū side. Soon, Robinson MacWayne, Honomalino Ranch proprietor, supplied horses, ranch hands, and guide service through coastal Miloliʻi to Hoʻōpūloa. Jaggar and Palmer set up camp in the Hoʻōpūloa store. Jaggar noted that the Chinese proprietor had swept the building spotlessly clean after removing his stock of goods and furniture. Both the store and the adjacent wharf lay directly in the track of the oncoming lava front. Groups of people were huddled along the stone walls back of the village, watching the glowing, crunching, relentless wall of lava behind. But they were watching it at leisure, without excitement, and with great weariness because the main event had been postponed. All had come to see the lava enter the sea, but it was still several hundred feet away.
Those watching parked their cars on the Kona side of Hoʻōpūloa. One enterprising youth used his small truck to haul water from the Hoʻōpūloa tanks to Miloliʻi, the end of the road. When the flow reached the sea, he and his truck were cut off; he later took his truck apart and transported it piece by piece by outrigger canoe to the road on the Kona side of Hoʻōpūloa. At around 0300 HST, April 18, the flow rose over the stone walls behind the village and started burning outhouses. Pigs heard squealing in a pen were released. Destruction of the village was gradual and complete. As soon as lava began falling into the sea, steam shot up in jets. Hundreds of dead fish floated along the edge of the turbulent water that spread out from the contact area of hot rock and cold ocean. Hawaiians from Miloliʻi came in their canoes and gathered the dead fish for salting and preserving. Jaggar collected some dead, floating fish and noted that they were perfectly fresh and in no sense cooked.
Mauna Loa's recognized eruptive pattern is a summit eruption followed—within hours, days, or months—by a flank eruption. In 1926, there was a brief summit eruption, followed by 14 days of eruption on the Southwest Rift Zone.
A flow from this rift zone passed through a South Kona forest, crossed the main road on April 16, and pooled behind the coastal village of Hoʻōpūloa.
Between 0400 and 0900 HST on April 18, the flow buried the village, wharf, and harbor and entered the ocean. This was HVO's first real experience with property destruction by a lava flow. The following account was compiled from Apple and Apple (1979), Finch (1926), Jaggar (1926a, b), Macdonald and Hubbard (1982), and unpublished sources.
Edward G. Wingate, USGS topographical engineer, was mapping the summit of Mauna Loa in 1926, changing campsites as the work progressed. On April 10, his camp was along the 3,475-m (11,400-ft) elevation, well into the desolate upload above the Kaʻū District. An earthquake wakened the campers about 0145; as they drifted back to sleep, a further series of quakes had them sitting up, talking, and wondering. About 0330, Wingate braved the cold and wind; with a blanket wrapped around him, he went outside and stood bathed in reddish light.
From his camp, Wingate had a wonderful view of plumes of gas lighted by the glow from below. They reached the flows around 0630. With his crew, Wingate mapped lava fountains, moving flows, steaking vents, and spewing cones.
The packer who kept Wingate's camps supplied with water, food, and firewood had spent the night on the trail on his way down to pick up another load; he reached the ʻĀinapō trailhead midafternoon on April 11. More than supplies awaited him—there was an HVO expedition demanding guide service to Wingate's camp. This was the first news of the eruption for the packer. The expedition consisted of Dr. Thomas Jaggar, topographer J.C. Beam, cook H. Yasunaka, and packers John Kama and Joe Kaipaloa.
After a night at ʻĀinapō, and with three additional park animals borrowed from Kapāpala Ranch, the expedition started up toward Wingate's camp. By mid-afternoon, they reached the camp, which Jaggar described as a primitive affair consisting of three tents and a cook shelter on the rough lava fields. The cook shelter was bolstered with stone walls to protect against wind, but all the tents had to tacked down to the pāhoehoe lava with spike nails.
For three days, the HVO party surveyed the sources of the eruption; they then descended and moved into the South Kona District, where roads, houses and other property were threatened by the lava flows. Wingate and his crew stayed behind. Much of the area already mapped was under fresh lava, and there was a lot of remapping to do.
On April 16, Jaggar scratched marks about a foot apart across the rutted, gravel road (the only road) between the Districts of South Kona and Kaʻū. A lava flow was approaching, and Jaggar wanted to measure the flow's speed as it crossed the road. Perhaps a hundred people were waiting around the Hoʻōpūloa Church, on the upfill side of the road, and at the Kanaana house opposite, on the downhill side of the road. They had seen and heard the flow, 4.5–6 m (15–20 ft) high and more than 150 m (500 ft) wide, as it moved through the forest uphill. When it neared the road, people who lived on the Kona side of the flow moved off to the north, and those who lived on the Kaʻū side moved to the south, so they could go home after the road was closed.
Jaggar recorded that it reached the uphill, inland side of the road at 1222 at an estimated speed of about 2 m per minute (7 ft per minute); within two minutes the road was crossed. Jaggar and his assistant, H.S. Palmer, stayed on the Kaʻū side. Soon, Robinson MacWayne, Honomalino Ranch proprietor, supplied horses, ranch hands, and guide service through coastal Miloliʻi to Hoʻōpūloa. Jaggar and Palmer set up camp in the Hoʻōpūloa store. Jaggar noted that the Chinese proprietor had swept the building spotlessly clean after removing his stock of goods and furniture. Both the store and the adjacent wharf lay directly in the track of the oncoming lava front. Groups of people were huddled along the stone walls back of the village, watching the glowing, crunching, relentless wall of lava behind. But they were watching it at leisure, without excitement, and with great weariness because the main event had been postponed. All had come to see the lava enter the sea, but it was still several hundred feet away.
Those watching parked their cars on the Kona side of Hoʻōpūloa. One enterprising youth used his small truck to haul water from the Hoʻōpūloa tanks to Miloliʻi, the end of the road. When the flow reached the sea, he and his truck were cut off; he later took his truck apart and transported it piece by piece by outrigger canoe to the road on the Kona side of Hoʻōpūloa. At around 0300 HST, April 18, the flow rose over the stone walls behind the village and started burning outhouses. Pigs heard squealing in a pen were released. Destruction of the village was gradual and complete. As soon as lava began falling into the sea, steam shot up in jets. Hundreds of dead fish floated along the edge of the turbulent water that spread out from the contact area of hot rock and cold ocean. Hawaiians from Miloliʻi came in their canoes and gathered the dead fish for salting and preserving. Jaggar collected some dead, floating fish and noted that they were perfectly fresh and in no sense cooked.