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Full story below:
Royal Gardens subdivision is no more, it ended existing last night, but will live on in legend for many more years - as will its last and longest residing resident, Jack Thompson.
(House is red square, and the large black area is much of last December's big flow that narrowly missed the house - click any image to open view window for all photos)
For thirty years Jack Thompson and his home in the Royal Gardens subdivision on the south slopes of Hawaii Island have been haunted by Kilauea Volcano lava flows.. 
The above photo taken on Thursday afternoon, March 1st: lava taking out the forest 1000-feet above Jack's home.Friday, March 2nd, 2012, a persistent thrust of rapidly advancing lava coming from the erupting Pu`u O`o crater four miles above, invaded the last large forest remnant, and more importantly, the last occupied home. According to residents of Kalapana Gardens, who could see the remote area clearly from 3 1/2 miles away, say that lava overtook and destroyed Jack's house an hour and a half after we flew out last night. The lava was only 120-feet from the back of the house when we finally left late in the day.
The photo above was taken at 6:00 AM Friday morning March 2nd. The lava has taken out more forest and has just started down Hoku street, which is just out of view on the left edge of the lava fields and burning trees.Jack and I made the call to evacuate mid-afternoon on Friday when it became abundantly clear that one strong finger of this flow front had invaded the deep forest directly behind and above his home, and was following a trench that leads directly to his backyard. Earlier in the day it seemed (to Jack only :) that the lava would possibly be pulled down the sloping Hoku street 300 feet to the east of his house, as shown in the photos below.
Jack looking at Hoku street.
Jack came close to losing his home to lava starting in 1986, and many times since, so he was surprisingly relaxed about the situation until after I insisted we hike up into the forest to locate the lava I had suspected was coming through there, based on sightings I had seen earlier by looking into the forest west from Hoku street through the smoke and flames. After a much too short of a scramble through the forest we were shocked at just how close the lava was, and how strongly the flow front was moving -- heading directly toward Jack's house. Even at this sighting Jack thought it might get diverted by the landscape somehow, as it had so many times before in recent months and years .... (The spectacular December 2011 flow missed him by only 300 feet).
I returned to this forest lava front several times to gauge it's direction and pace. It was very evident to me this was going to take the house... So Jack came back up to see it again and he knew instantly we had to evacuate quickly. ( He was going to wait and see what happened overnight until this point!).
We had less than three hours of daylight to ready ourselves for an airlift out.
I snapped the aerial photos as Jack and I were airlifted out just before dusk last night; he in one chopper, while I was in the other- both helicopters loaded with Jack's belongings. All the images and video were shot over two days at, or nearby, Jack's property in Royal Gardens
We arranged for Paradise Helicopter's to bring in two empty choppers to carry what belongings Jack wanted to save, and ourselves, off the mountain (there has been no road access there for many years due to the continued lava flows; it is nearly four miles to the nearest road.).
Cal, of Paradise Helicopters, had generously offered to provide the airlift if needed... it was needed now!. Jack raced around the house gathering items, I began carrying the bags & boxes to Plumeria Street below the house. Cal sent in a helicopter early to give us a VHF radio so we could communicate directly with the pilots as pick up time neared, which was set for 5:00pm; we had very little time to complete the preparations; we could hear the methane explosions getting louder from the advancing flow front behind the house.
Above: lava burning into the forest above Jack's home on Thursday night, March 1st, 2012Here is a short bit of background information:
Jack tells me he purchased his first lot there in 1972 on Queens Street in Royal Gardens; relocating to Plumeria Street residence in 1978. The subdivision contained 1500 lots on the Pulama Pali and coastal plains below. Jack likes telling the story about the day he was finishing the cedar house in early January 1983: Having just placed the windows into his upper loft bedroom, when that very night he saw an erie orange glow flashing on the panes-- This glow was from huge lava fountains four miles upslope, he says this while waving his hands in the air like fountains, and was the very beginning of the eruption of Pu`u O`o January 3rd, 1983, which continues to this day.
All other homes in Royal Gardens, as well and a large number in Kalapana Gardens and surrounding area, were destroyed by repeated lava flows through the eighties and early nineties, including three more in 2010 & 11 - somehow Jack's always survived... until the evening of March 2nd, 2012.
Jack has witnessed every coastal lava flow that ever erupted from Pu`u O`o; close to thirty years worth. He could see from the national park side in the southwest, all the way to Kalapana & Kaimu nine miles to the east -- a very commanding view off his notorious Lava House up there alone high on the Pulama Pali slopes- no one else in the world can say that but him.
Lava flowing only 120 feet behind, and towards, Jack's home as we were airlifted out.EDIT: One week later Jack & I went back to his homestead to see what remained. You can read that story and see the images and video here
*All images, video and text copyright of Leigh Hilbert - please contact for usage license: leigh.hi1@hawaiiantel.net
