PAHOA, Hawaii – On Saturday, artists and musicians marked the anniversary of the June 27th lava flow at the Pahoa Village Museum.

Pahoa artist/activist Sara Steiner-Jackson was one of the organizers of the “Love Bomb For Pahoa”, which featured a retrospective of her artwork. Steiner-Jackson is working on a new painting to commemorate the lava flow that turned life upside down in the village. She told us she still has mixed emotions about the whole experience.

Although many evacuated Pahoa as the lava flow drew near, the destruction of the town and the isolation of Puna never materialized. Steiner-Jackson and others refer to the whole event as a government initiated “Premature Evacuation”. Resident musician Michael Riley even performed a song of that same title on Saturday.

Steiner-Jackson is also releasing a website with her daughter Jasmine for the village, PahoaToday.com.

According to a media release by Steiner-Jackson:

Her mother, Charlotte Jackson completely wrote, produced and distributed her own newspaper, Simi Today, with 10,000 copies a month for many years in Simi Valley, California. The website is dedicated to my mom, who is 85 years old and resides in Leilani Estates.

The 96778 zipcode seems to get the short end of many government sticks, and the goal of Pahoa Today is a free place for residents and businesses to provide current information to the local, tourist and curious internet populace.