My sister lives on the Big Island of Hawaii and was one of the 1,700 or so people evacuated from Leilani Estates, near Pahoa. She is safe, staying at a friend's cottage ten miles away, and now occupied with trying to persuade her stubborn neighbors to evacuate. (Yes, there are still holdouts.) It's a frightening time for her. There are now six active lava fissures in the earth at her housing development, one of which is either two or four blocks away, based on different readings of street maps. We all still don't know precisely, we see the drone footage and try to calculate how fast the lava is moving, we are watching maps and news of more fissures, and trying to hope the boiling lava flow doesn't reach Moku Street.

It could go on and on, there's no way of knowing when it will stop, so many residents are worried and some tempers are fraying.

More frightening still, there were the giant quakes yesterday, which tend to foreshadow big volcanic eruptions, with Mount Kilauea nearby. My sister said there had been quakes every five minutes in the three days that led up to the earth's fissures and roaring lava flows in the Leilani Estates neighborhood. Now there have been some monster quakes, one of them registering 6.9, which is bigger than the 2010 quake in Haiti. Krakatau comes to mind ... but according to the United States Geological Survey (a must go-to site in these days) Kilauea historically does not erupt hugely after very large quakes, it only erupts a little, so maybe that's reason to be hopeful.

My point here, is that people will do better if they can focus on the hopeful. It's been unspeakably stressful for the people affected by the volcanic activity right now, so whipping up fears is rather appalling. What's even less helpful is the sort of scaremongering we are seeing from the left, on Twitter, claiming President Trump doesn't want to help the people of Hawaii affected by the volcanic activity, as if that were actually true.

Look at the kind of junk they're putting out on Twitter, which only scares the locals:

No matter the outcome of the volcano and earthquakes in Hawaii, I’ll bet my last dollar that Trump treats it like Puerto Rico when it comes to aid.

Why?

Not enough white people.

Oh, and there’s also that Obama birthplace thing. #TrumpIsAWhiteSupremacist

— Snake Oil Demagogue (@SnakeOilPrez) May 4, 2018

Does Trump know that Hawaiians are Americans?

— melomys (@melomys) May 5, 2018

Let’s hope our president realizes Hawaiians are Americans and the federal government treats them better than they did with Puerto Rico...

— justin meyer (@PrinceOnTheHill) May 5, 2018

There's been some talk about President Trump not tweeting about the matter. Nothing has even happened yet other than two houses being burned down, yet somehow, he's supposed to be tweeting about this. Seems that in the case of Trump, the pre-emptive Katrina-style blasts are starting before any disaster has even happened. Given the press's focus on Stormy Daniels and the lack of information of what is actually going on in Hawaii, it isn't surprising. Yet Trump hasn't even gotten a chance to say anything, and already he's being blamed.

The reality is, like the missile warning fiasco that affected Hawaii several weeks, ago, helping the people is the state's job, not the federal government's. The governor of Hawaii has issued many tweets and announcements that the people affected will be helped. Governor David Ige also said that Trump's feds already are helping:

I reassured them that the county, state and the federal governments are working together to do everything in our power to help them get through this, to ensure their welfare and safety, and to assure them that we are here for the long haul.

— Governor David Ige (@GovHawaii) May 5, 2018

The feds normally do help if the state is overwhelmed, but it's likely the state won't be, given the relatively small number of homeowners affected (it's 770 or so, and they'd only be called to help 770 if all 770 are buried in lava, which is unlikely). Out on the mainland, there has been nothing but sympathy from Congressmembers, so potential federal help would be a bipartisan affair.

There are strong voices from the right offering nothing but support and encouragement to the people of Hawaii, such as tweet-king James Woods and all his conservative commenters:

Thousands of miles from any continental land mass and the earth is “erupting.” I hope our friends in Hawaii are safe. https://t.co/Dlnr7CfAvA

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) May 5, 2018

President Obama, Hawaiian native, I notice, who likes to opine on everything, hasn't said anything, either, but that doesn't seem to bother the left

I assured my sister that since the homeowners were unable to buy volcano insurance, it's very likely they will get state and even federal help for their plight if the houses are destroyed by the lava. It's not a big group of houses, and the act of nature is so freakishly catastrophic that the response will probably be sympathy and resources, not indifference. The state, after all, did issue the permit for the building of the houses, so there is arguably some responsibility there.

With all the uncertainties out there, what residents such as my sister could use is support and encouragement, as well as the noticeable Aloha spirit that is widespread on the island as residents help each other without the state. What she and the others don't need is fearmongering and preemptive howls of Trump's indifference from the left.

Image credit: Ryan Finlay via Facebook.