Just to give everyone some background:
The state is Hawaii. The islands are, from east to west, Hawaii Island (the Big Island), Maui, Lanai, Molokai, Oahu, and Kauai. There are also a couple of smaller islands, Kahoolawe (uninhabited) and Niihau(private to one extended family, no one can go ashore there) for a total of 8 main islands. The state capital, Honolulu, is on the island of Oahu. There are 137 tiny islands and atolls stretching for a couple thousand miles past Midway to Kure atoll. But Kauai is the westernmost main island where people live or travel to. I think there is still a small military presence on Midway but I'm not sure. All the main islands except Oahu are sometimes referred to as the neighbor islands. Las Vegas is often called the 9th island because people who live here like to go to Vegas.
The island populations are:
Oahu - 876,000
Hawaii - 150,000
Maui - 118,000
Kauai - 58,000
Lanai - 3,200
Molokai - 7,400
Niihau - 160
Kahoolawe - 0
Compare that with Rexburg (28,000), Chandler and Gilbert (each about 250,000)
The bottom line is most people in the state of Hawaii live in Honolulu, which is a big modern city. On the neighbor islands life can be quite different, which is why many of us choose to live here. And while the state has authority on all the islands, it does not always have the resources to enforce its authority so in many ways things just are not pursued and the situation is not unlike the wild west. Each island has one or two main tourist areas where things are more like the mainland, or at least how tourists expect Hawaii to be, but outside of those areas, it's quite a bit different.
Here is an example of how crazy it can get here. There is a road that the State built illegally in the 1960s on land owned by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL). DHHL is a state agency that is the trustee for a federal trust created by an act of congress in 1921 to set aside a huge amount of land for the exclusive benefit of native Hawaiians for farming and other activities. The land does not belong to the state. It belongs to a trust. The state was sued decades ago for illegally using Hawaiian Homelands for other purposes. It settled for several hundred million dollars at the time. But the state never paid. The state wants to enforce the law on that road (which it has done illegally for decades). It tried to transfer the road to the department of transportation and make it a state highway a few years ago so the police can enforce the law on the road. It made the legal transfer but still never paid. So the title transfer was probably illegal. To correct it the state needs to pay the original amount plus interest, over a billion dollars! That is about 8% of the entire state budget. There is little hope the state will ever be able to pay that. Unfortunately, these messy situations like this are common here. So everyone just closes their eyes and ignores the problem.
At a resort or in Princeville, Lori and Chad would be in tourist areas. Kapaa, where they went to church is a little touristy but also very local. By the way, Hanalei, which you mentioned is close to Princeville.
I don't think there is much chance that the disorder in the state will help L&C in any way. But I think it is important for people here to realize that if the focus does move to Hawaii and trying to get them back to Idaho, don't be surprised if you see all kinds of unbelievable craziness.
