Editorial: Leilani Estates braces for tourists

After months of Kilauea eruption, Leilani Estates residents are still reeling from the loss of nearly 720 homes there and in Kapoho, and recovery has only just begun. That includes some hard decisions on how best to support residents’ safety and security, while preparing for the inevitable wave of visitors when a government checkpoint is soon taken down. 

A threatened lawsuit by the Leilani Community Association has delayed, for a month, the dismantling of the checkpoint at Leilani Avenue, a county road leading into and through the subdivision. Federal emergency funding paying for 75 percent of the $100,000-per-month security is ending, but Mayor Harry Kim has decided, reasonably, to keep the checkpoint up through month’s end. The fervent hope is to buy time to quickly establish a safe and minimally disruptive lava-viewing area and to reopen the Pohoiki waterfront.

There’s empathy for Leilani Estates denizens, who certainly did not wish, or expect, that lava would destroy many of their homes, cut off neighborhood roads, and leave a vast lava field and a 300-foot cinder cone smack-dab in their subdivision. Unfortunately for them, Leilani Avenue is a public street that can’t be blocked off to the public indefinitely.

Safety was paramount when the fissures were active, so the checkpoint was crucial; now, though, the mandatory evacuation has lifted. The new normal, at least for the near term and lamentably for residents, will include lava-interested outsiders.