Hurricane Flossie Upstaged by Minor Earthquake

Some of you may have been worried about how we weathered Hurricane Flossie, and assuming you’ve heard the news, not much happened. Some rain, some wind, and that’s about it.

On our way to Kona on Tuesday, we stopped at South Point, the southernmost point on the island, where Polynesians landed when they first arrived. The Hawaiians call this place Ka Lae, and it is considered a sacred spot (heiau, in Hawaiian). You can still see holes in the rocks where ancient Hawaiians moored their canoes, allowing them to float out into the ocean and catch fish while still tethered to the land, preventing them from getting swept away in the turbulent water.

We couldn’t believe that they hadn’t blocked access since they’d closed all public beaches and campsites due to the impending doom of Hurricane Flossie. When we got there, we were greeted by huge swells that were crashing against the cliffs. Here’s a video of the drama. You might want to turn off your sound since the wind was really loud.


There was a local CBS affiliate filming in front of the surf so that they could add to the hype being broadcast across the country. You can see a guy holding a microphone and another holding a camera if you look closely at the video.

Later that night, back at our hostel in Volcano Village (which was really just a large home owned by a Japanese family), we awoke to an earthquake around 2:00 a.m. At first I thought it was just Pete shaking the bed, but it only took a moment for me to realize what was happening, and for Pete to get out the word, “earthquake.” It was a magnitude 4.4, and its epicenter was just 7 miles from Volcano. There had been another one the previous night, a 5.3 that was 15 miles from where we were staying, but we didn’t feel it since we were driving at the time. After the adrenaline wore off, we fell back to sleep.

This morning we were hoping to drive along Chain of Craters Road inside Volcanoes National Park, and then hike the Kilauea Iki Trail. We thought that Pele was smiling down on us when we got to the entrance and there was a sign saying to drive through. Great, we thought, we get to go in for free! But in fact, Pele was up to her old tricks again—not only were all of the roads closed within the park, but it was so rainy and foggy that we couldn’t see anything even if we’d hiked around. We added “lava” to the list of things we’re apparently not meant to see alongside “dolphins” and “whales.”