I'll never be able to mentally comprehend the Hawaiian attitude of "let the lava flow where it may". Back in 2014 when a guy actually defended his home and everyone got mad at him for doing so. Saying that he made the lava worse for his neighbors by directing it around his house.... but they could have all done the same thing and directed it around the whole neighborhood into unpopulated areas (there was a really obvious route for it), and it would have been more time-efficient to protect everyone en masse. Instead they had this fatalistic, "Pele-will-take-what-she-will", "resistance-is-futile" attitude to the flow. And always seems to, in a way that I never see in any other volcanically active area. Despite the fact that while Kilauea's eruptions are long, they're rather low flow rate, which makes things easier.
If Hawaii were like Iceland, a large chunk of the state would have been converging on Kilauea with every last industrial-scale water pump and every last piece of earthmoving equipment they can get their hands on (and importing whatever they can't, with as fast shipping as possible, regardless of the price). Back when Eldfell erupted on Heimaey in the 1970s (in the middle of a Cod War with the UK), while the country opened up its homes to the fleeing residents, a huge number of people went in the opposite direction, out to the lava front. Icelanders were out there walking on the lava before it even cooled, directing a nonstop stream of seawater against the flow. The eruption was right near town, and while they did lose a fair chunk of the town, not only did they manage to save part, but they more importantly stopped the flow from filling in the harbour (which would have in large part led to an abandonment of the island... no harbour, no fishing fleet, no economy, no Heimaey).
I sometimes see people make excuses for the lack of countermeasures, like "we made tiny efforts a couple times nearly a century ago and it didn't work, therefore there's no point" attitude, despite the fact that many countries have had good success, particularly in the modern era, with much more effective techniques, modern equipment, and computer modeling of flows. I just have trouble internalizing this fatalism.