signed an emergency proclamation as residents of the Kaohe Homesteads subdivision learned that lava from Kilauea Volcano was just away and could reach them within a week. On September 13, a release from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory stated that the flow had begun to shift away from the subdivision as it had interacted with both the cracks and down-dropped blocks within the East Rift Zone of Kīlauea volcano and a natural valley that leveled away from Kaohe Homesteads. In early October 2014, the lava flow was heading towards the community of Pahoa, Hawaii. On October 25, the flow had crossed Cemetery Road at Apa'a Road near the Pahoa Recycling and Transfer Station, a waste/trash station, which was closed and relocated due to the lava flow. The flow was quickly advancing on a nearby cemetery and triggered the first series of evacuations. On November 10, the flow claimed a home. Officials feared that if the lava flow continued on its path it would cover and close the only route in and out of lower Puna, Highway 130. On October 22, The National Park Service announced that it would help state and county officials create an emergency route along 8 miles of the buried Chain of Craters Road in order to help Puna residents who would lose access to the rest of Hawai‘i if that lava flow covered Highway 130. Construction of the Chain of Craters alternate route began by making a path over a wall of lava rock covering the road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The $12 million to $15.5 million route, to be re-established between the park and Kalapana as a gravel road, would have been the only road in and out of lower Puna, if the June 27 lava flow had made its way to the sea. The park closed the end of Chain of Craters Road as construction began. Nearly 8 miles of the roadway, officially known as Chain of Craters Road inside the park and Highway 130 outside of it, had been covered by past flows from the ongoing Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruption that threatened Pahoa. Chain of Craters Road, which opened in 1965, had portions blocked or covered by lava for 37 years of its 49-year existence, according to the park. The road is about 19 miles long inside the park. However, that lava flow stopped just short of the village of Pahoa. In 2016 a