Puna, Hawaii
Kalama's map of 1837[3][4] shows that Puna was a Moku (traditional district) covering the southeastern corner of the island before the great mahele of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
[5] Millions of tourists came each year[6] to witness the spectacle of a torrent of lava plunging into the sea and exploding as it hit the water.
Lava flows continued to add new land to the old shoreline, often resulting in an unstable delta that periodically formed cracks and broke off into the sea; visitors were provided with viewing stations at a safe distance.
Community leaders and state officials began to draw up plans for evacuations and the mayor signed an emergency proclamation as residents of the Kaohe Homesteads subdivision learned that lava from Kilauea Volcano was just 0.8 miles (1.3 km) away and could reach them within a week.
On October 22, The National Park Service announced[16] that it would help state and county officials create an emergency route along 8 miles of the buried Chain of Craters Road in order to help Puna residents who would lose access to the rest of Hawai‘i if that lava flow covered Highway 130.
Construction of the Chain of Craters alternate route began by making a path over a wall of lava rock covering the road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
Nearly 8 miles of the roadway, officially known as Chain of Craters Road inside the park and Highway 130 outside of it, had been covered by past flows from the ongoing Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruption that threatened Pahoa.
In 2016 a new flow (called Episode 61G by the United States Geological Survey) emerged from Puʻu ʻŌʻō in a southerly direction, the shortest way to the ocean, across an area that had been covered in lava during the preceding decades.
The affordable housing prices have led to an enormous increase in developments in Puna, and have made this district the fastest growing area on the Big Island.
Although rainfall is occasionally very heavy (one storm in 2003 brought 36 inches (90 cm) of rain in 24 hours), flooding is rare due to the slope and porosity of the volcanic rock.
Besides visiting the active Kīlauea volcano and the formerly active and now cooled lava flows in the area of Kalapana, another interesting site within the Puna district was the heated tide pools at Ahalanui Beach Park (aka Puʻalaʻa County Park), where spring water was naturally heated through geothermal energy and this mixed with ocean water along the shoreline.
