ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON@STARBULLETIN.COM A plume of vog stretched across the Kau desert of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park toward the remote community of Wood Valley this week as a team of federal specialists toured the area to assess breathing hazards.

Living in a haze

Wood Valley is possibly the voggiest place on the Big Island

HILO » Mary Lester looked into the murky, voggy sky, trying to glimpse the sun above her Wood Valley home 40 miles southwest of Hilo.

"All you could see through the vog was a little red glow," she said, recalling the experience earlier this week.

At least she made it through another voggy night.

"The nights are the worst for me because I can't sleep," she said. She bought a gas mask and even wears it to bed.

Often she sleeps at a friend's house in Pahala or in her car on the beach at Punaluu. Some neighbors have left their homes and rent elsewhere, she said.

Vog has hit Wood Valley hard.

Nestled up against the hulk of Mauna Loa, the little valley has become possibly the voggiest spot on the Big Island since March, when Kilauea Volcano more than doubled its output of gas and ultrafine dust.

About 35 families live in Wood Valley, but everyone in a 50-mile stretch from Volcano Village to South Kona has been hit.

County and state officials have tried to give warnings, but the vog comes and goes faster than officials can get on the radio. There is no radio reception in the area anyway.

This week, four health officials from the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta visited the island to "assess" the problem, meaning they are asking questions but not yet publicly offering solutions.

The people of Wood Valley, who were not told about the officials, do not expect much when they hear from them.

"What are they going to do? They can't do anything," Lester said.

ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON@STARBULLETIN.COM Wood Valley resident Mary Lester shows the gas mask she uses during a vog event. During nighttime vog events she has esven tried to sleep with it.

"None of these guys know boo about volcanoes," he said.

Five miles away at Kau Hospital in Pahala, head nurse Nona Wilson said the federal officials admitted they are not used to a problem like vog, but she praised their willingness to learn.

Wood Valley and Pahala are part of the giant Kau District, half again as big as Oahu, where people are so far from government that they are used to relying on themselves.

Kau Hospital was built 35 years ago without air conditioning, Wilson said. To keep vog out of the emergency room, doctors taped a sheet of plastic across an opening, she said.

Two air conditioners and two air cleaners were added to the large room where elderly, long-term patients spend their days. The space was declared a "safe room."

During a major vog attack on July 24, sulfur dioxide readings everywhere in the hospital were as high as outdoors except for the safe room, Wilson said.

There is no protection for the nursing station where Sandi Long works. An asthmatic, she came back from vacation, got vog-induced pneumonia two days later, took antibiotics, then got pneumonia again.

Still she says, "I chose to live here. There is stuff going on in the world all the time. Pick your poison."

At the Kau Resource Center, executive Jessie Marques says too many people tough it out. They need to be told not to walk, not to jog, not to mow the lawn and especially not to smoke during a vog attack, she said.

But Marques is going beyond that. She is designing a questionnaire to find out how people are coping with vog. Then she plans to use it to get money for relatively simply solutions like buying small air cleaners that sell for about $100.

Marques says she told the federal officials she would be happy to take any money they can share.

COURTESY SABINE HENDRESCHKE Wood Valley resident Sabine Hendreschke took this photo from her home looking toward the sea during a vog event on the Big Island.