The Staying Power of Puna

by Maria Sherow

During the intense manhunt for a fugitive along our coast, the Red Road did not go quiet, even as a watchful silence settled over the jungle canopy. From Kaimū to Pohoiki, along the coastline, neighbors stepped outside and formed slow, steady patrols.

No one was trying to play the hero or make an arrest. People drove the familiar curves and watched. The purpose was to spot the suspect and call it in.

The urgency shifted instantly after the third murder, when it became clear the danger had moved right into our backyard.

At Sundari, a spa farther inland with no police presence, it felt like crickets out there. Workers there decided to shut down early, locking up before nightfall to ensure no one would be vulnerable on the way home in the dark. Pahoa became a ghost town as residents retreated indoors, leaving the coastal roads empty except for those watching from the shadows.

Two neighbors near the scene reviewed their security footage and saw a man duck low as cars passed. They tracked the movement and handed it to officers. Tipsters phoned 911 after spotting someone hiding in a grassy field. Guided by those precise witness reports, officers located the suspect off the Red Road near mile marker 22, where he had been hiding. The manhunt ended without further harm because community eyes chose care over confrontation.

That is Puna resilience in real time. Coordinated and rooted in the needs we all share.

We Have Practiced This Before

For some families, the ground opened in the middle of the day. For others, it opened in the middle of dinner. On May 3, 2018, Leilani Estates began to crack apart, and twenty-four fissures eventually tore through the subdivision. Thousands of us were displaced within days. Hundreds of homes were lost. The landscape we loved changed forever. What the official disaster statistics do not capture is what happened between the data points. That is where neighbors stepped in.

In 2018, fast-moving lava flows meant rumors could endanger lives. Residents communicated on social media about road conditions and air quality, sharing what they knew and flagging what was uncertain. During the recent manhunt, that same instinct to share critical information quickly showed up as precise tips phoned straight to emergency dispatch.

On the Red Road, neighbors were dubbed the Lower Puna Pono Posse, not because they were an armed posse, but because they were striving to be pono. Jeff Regan, a retired resident who helped coordinate the shifts, explained the mindset simply: “We were out to be eyes and ears.”

Using local knowledge, volunteers drove slowly from Pohoiki to Kaimū, checked Mackenzie Park, and let the neighbors they saw out in their yards know that a community patrol was out keeping watch.

At Mackenzie Park, the gaps in awareness became immediately clear. The patrol approached people who had no idea a third killing had even occurred or that a fugitive was nearby. The response to their warnings was instant. A tourist woman who was down there by herself jetted out of the park without hesitation the moment she was warned. A local team packed up their gear, looked at the patrol, said, “Wow, thanks for letting us know,” and cleared out right away.

In 2018, spare rooms opened from Hawaiian Shores to Hilo. People with trucks hauled freezers. People with freezers took in a neighbor’s fish and medicine. During the manhunt, that same care looked like checking on isolated kupuna and welcoming someone who did not want to be home alone.

The Pahoa hub offered heavy-duty masks and meals in 2018. In the recent crisis, belonging looked like a porch light left on for someone who needed it.

Yet, the emotional weight of this crisis hit differently than the lava. “The hardest thing,” Jeff shared, “was just to see all the fear in the community. It was intense, everywhere we went.”

 This fear wasn’t caused by an abstract threat but by something personal. This was not a stranger who drifted into town. The suspect was someone many people in the community knew, the kind of acquaintance you might buy coconuts or fish from. He was a familiar face who had even been to Jeff’s house in the past to dehydrate fish. That reality made the danger hit close to home. Everyone faced the unsettling realization that they knew exactly who the police were looking for before he was even caught. It highlighted how easily fear could unsettle the community’s sense of security. 

For Jeff, a man in his sixties, it brought a sudden, heavy sense of vulnerability, making him wonder whether he still had the same fight in him he’d possessed decades ago. That vulnerability was amplified by how lonely the action felt. While hundreds offered thumbs-up and supportive comments on Facebook, when it came down to taking physical action, only about ten people volunteered to take a shift. The rest of the community was simply paralyzed by fear.

True resilience does not mean we are fearless. It means we face the vulnerability of the moment and show up for each other anyway. For Jeff, stepping up was an extension of his kuleana, rooted in his regular volunteer work with community emergency teams. He wants to keep being more proactive in supporting his community, and that spirit is something we can all carry forward.

What This Asks of Us Now

You do not need a volcanic eruption or a manhunt to practice this.

We cannot wait for an economic or environmental breaking point to figure out how to stand together. The deep-seated social inequities and historical resentments on this island mean that when crisis hits, isolation is dangerous.

True safety is built on everyday survival. Right now, local non-profit organizations are working with agricultural networks and land trusts to ensure that everyone has a place to live and a way to feed themselves.

Start small and learn the names of the people on your block. Find out how they are doing and what they might need. The steadiness we showed one another in those moments of crisis did not appear out of nowhere. It grew from years of side-of-the-road conversations and the quiet accumulation of trust.

Jeff isn’t finished. He wants to keep building the kind of proactive relationships that don’t wait for an emergency to mean something. That intention is available to all of us, any week of the year.

Through fire and through fear, Puna has taught us the same lesson many times. We already know how to do this. We only need to keep choosing it.