(ABOVE VIDEO) The Hawaii County Council Committee on Public Safety and Mass Transit hears from Puna State Senator Russell Ruderman. Video by David Corrigan (Sept. 30)

NEWS BRIEF

• During the Hawaii County Council Committee on Public Safety and Mass Transit’s lava flow update, Puna Senator Russell Ruderman said he knows its not the job of civil defense to project optimism, “but it’s gotta be somebody’s job, and for right now I’ll take it on as mine.”
• The senator declared, “Don’t write Pahoa’s obituary, or Lower Puna’s obituary.”
• Sen. Ruderman also called recent schools closings (Montessori Country School in Pahoa and Kamehameha Schools-operated Pahoa Preschool) “a tragedy”

PRIMARY SOURCE

A quote from Senator Russell Ruderman (see video above):

“There’s a lot I hope still alive. Not a single person has been hurt. Not a single home has been burned. Yet, we have schools closing down, we have people moving out. I’m not sure all the doom and gloom is all necessary, even if the lava continues we might be okay out there.”Senator Russell Ruderman, Sept. 30