The most active fissure of the summer from the Kilauea volcano tore open in the Leilani Estates subdivision on Hawaii's Big Island. (Photo: Google Maps)
HONOLULU ― Now that the devastating lava eruptions on Hawaii’s Big Island have paused indefinitely, residents are slowly returning to a place that no longer looks like home. That is, if they have a home to return to at all.
This summer’s eruption from the Kilauea volcano’s east rift zone wiped out more than 700 homes in the rural subdivisions of Leilani Estates and Lanipuna Gardens. What used to be a lush community of one-acre homes now includes an expanse of unpopulated blackened earth.
This Oct. 4 photo shows some of the devastation caused by the volcano in Leilani Estates. (Photo: USGS)
“You still see a lot of empty houses that haven’t been cleaned up,” Janet Montrose, a 62-year-old retiree who’s lived in Leilani Estates for a decade, told HuffPost.
Montrose’s home was near monstrous fissure 8, one of the most active during the eruption that gushed a river of lava.
“Everything across the street from me is covered in lava where it used to be all of my friends and their houses,” Montrose said. “All I look at now is [hardened lava].”
The following photo shows a close-up of fissure 8 while it was still active.
While Montrose’s home was mostly spared by the lava, she and her husband have decided it’s no place to live anymore.
Before May, Leilani Estates was a lush community filled with homes on one-acre parcels teeming with fruit trees and towering palms. Montose would host annual community events on her property, sometimes attracting hundreds of people.
“We moved here and built our dream house,” Montrose told HuffPost.
“Now when I drive to Leilani, it always has a big dark cloud over it,” she said. “I always get very anxious when I drive here.”
In this photo of fissure 8's river of lava, Janet Montrose's home is circled to show friends and family how close it was to the flow. (Photo: Janet Montrose GoFundMe)
Satellite photos released by the U.S. Geological Survey show entire blocks of properties consumed by black. According to Tina Neal, scientist-in-charge at the USGS’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, some parts of the new lava fields don’t show any signs that people once lived there.
“It’s just a vast expanse of black lava that covered so much of the eastern part” of Leilani Estates, Neal said.
Below, see the how lava from the Kilauea volcano engulfed the rural communities. HuffPost has edited the satellite photos to show contrast. See the original USGS photos here.
A close-up of the eastern part of Leilani Estates before the eruption. (Photo: )
A comparable photo after the eruption. The crater within the fissure 8 cone is visible. (Photo: HuffPost)
A shot of the Lanipuna Gardens subdivision before the eruption. (Photo: HuffPost)
A comparable photo after the eruption. (Photo: LE)
The Kapoho Beach Lots subdivision, east of Leilani Estates, is seen before the eruption. (Photo: HuffPost)
A comparable photo after most of the neighborhood was covered by the fissure 8 lava flow. (Photo: HuffPost)
Also on HuffPost
A lava flow moves on Makamae Street on Sunday in Leilani Estates.
Lava erupts from a fissure east of the Leilani Estates subdivision during ongoing eruptions on May 13, 2018.
Lava erupts from a fissure in Leilani Estates on Saturday.
Carolyn McNamara, 70, hugs her neighbor Paul Campbell, 68, at an evacuation center in Pahoa after moving out of their homes in the Puna community of Leilani Estates on Friday.
A column of robust, reddish-brown ash plume looms over the Big Island on Friday.
A man watches as lava spews from a fissure in Leilani Estates on Friday.
Visitors view the Halemaumau crater within the Kilauea volcano summit caldera at the re-opened Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on Monday.
Lava from volcanic fissures slowly flows and overtakes structures and trees in Leilani Estates on Sunday.
People take photos of lava as steam rises from a fissure in Leilani Estates on Friday.
A plume of gas mixed with smoke from fires caused by lava rises amid clouds in Leilani Estates on Sunday.
The collapsed Puu Oo crater, which formed on April 30, spews ash on Hawaii's Kilauea volcano on Thursday.
A man climbs onto a petrified lava flow from long ago for a picture of the plume of volcanic smoke over Leilani Estates on Sunday.
A crack opened on Pahoa's Pohoiki Road on Saturday.
Personnel at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park turn people away on Saturday.
Police and the National Guard check the identification of every vehicle passenger before allowing evacuees to return to their homes in Leilani Estates on Sunday.
The level of the summit's lava lake has reportedly dropped since last week.
Vehicles head for the intersection of Pahoa and Kapoho roads as evacuees are allowed to return to their Leilani Estates homes to gather belongings on Sunday.
A fissure in Leilani Estates lights up its surroundings on Friday.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists monitor Kilauea's eruption spatter on the roads in Leilani Estates on Sunday.
Smoke and volcanic gases rise as lava cools in the Leilani Estates neighborhood, in the aftermath of eruptions and lava flows from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island, on May 11, 2018.
Parishioners pray at Sacred Heart Church on Hawaii's Big Island on Sunday.
A lava fissure erupts in the aftermath of eruptions from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island, on May 12, 2018.
In this handout photo provided by the U.S. Geological Survey, a lava flow emerges from a fissure as a result of Kilauea volcano activity on Hawaii's Big Island on May 13, 2018.
Lava erupts from a fissure east of the Leilani Estates subdivision on May 13, 2018.
The latest Kilauea volcano activity illuminates the sky and is reflected off a vehicle (Bottom) on Hawaii's Big Island on May 14, 2018.
Lava flows at a new fissure in the aftermath of eruptions from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island as a local resident walks nearby after taking photos on May 12, 2018.
Lieutenant Aaron Hew Lew, of the Hawaii National Guard, measures levels of toxic sulfur dioxide gas on May 8, 2018.
Molten rock flows and burst to the surface, threatening homes in a rural area in this still image from an aerial video taken from a Hawaii Army National Guard a week after the eruption of the Kilauea volcano, in Pahoa, Hawaii, U.S., May 10, 2018.
Puna District resident Ray Kaaihue (L), 47, listens with his wife Jennifer, 46, their daughter Kieryn, 22, and Kieryn's daughter, Karsyn, 1, during a community meeting on the ongoing eruptions on May 7, 2018.
Major Jeff Hickman, of the Hawaii National Guard, takes a photo in the Leilani Estates subdivision on May 13, 2018.
An ash plume rises from the Halemaumau crater within the Kilauea volcano summit caldera at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on May 9, 2018.
U.S. Army National Guard soldiers take measurements for dangerous levels of sulfur dioxide gas near a volcanic fissure in the Leilani Estates neighborhood on May 10, 2018.
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