I don’t know whether to ROFL or remodel my cistern into a bunker. On May 17, Axios, an independent digital news service, posted this report:

Headline: “Exclusive: US eyes attack-drone threat from Cuba”

Lead paragraph: “Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones and recently began discussing plans to use them to attack the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels and possibly Key West, Fla., 90 miles north of Havana, according to classified intelligence shared with Axios.”

And our crowds went wild as the story became the weekend’s hot topic across Key West social media. From “get a grip” or “we’re doomed” to “proof there’s a cabal in City Hall,” hundreds of commenters chimed in. Late Sunday morning Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay tried to quell the anxiety with his own post: “I am monitoring the situation, but I have not been contacted by any government agency and I don’t believe there is any reason to be concerned. I am confident I will be notified if anything does change and I will alert the public.”

Can we take a deep breath here, folks, and wrap some context around that Axios story before we go bunker-building?

Here’s what we know:

First, there’s no reason to doubt the Axios reporting itself. Axios has been a reasonably trustworthy news organization since 2017 and has done some strong reporting out of Cuba. If you take the time to read the whole story, Axios makes it clear our spooks don’t think there’s cause for imminent concern.

Second, Key West is a military town located about 90 miles from Cuba. Its people are our neighbors, tied inextricably to our island for at least 200 years. You can’t see Cuba from here, but it’s close enough that we used to go back and forth for Sunday dinner with family. These days we know the sounds of jet fighters training overhead, the increase in formidable-looking ships in the harbor, the motorcades of blacked-out windows — and we remember anti-aircraft installations along Smathers Beach during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.

Cuba and Key West: We tend to forget we are a military town

Between the Navy and the Coast Guard, with a sprinkling of other armed services, the military owns about 25 percent of Key West and the Lower Keys, mostly around the water’s edge and stretching from Boca Chica to the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force-South in Truman Annex. It controls the airspace between Boca Chica and Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. And not to be forgotten, there are the Air Force’s Fat Albert blimps up there on Cudjoe Key, surveilling us and drug runners since 1959.

Third, we know Donald Trump and his anti-Castro-pro-business legions lust after Cuba. Trump’s made that clear for at least 10 years. Developing hotels, golf courses and private deals in Cuba became part of his business plan during Barack Obama’s “Cuban Thaw” between July 2015 and June 2017.

Since the unauthorized U.S. invasion of Venezuela and the overthrow of its government, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have escalated their pressure on Cuba and imposed draconian embargoes in increasing efforts to collapse the island’s already foundering economy. Cuba has run out of oil. Its people are starving. There is no electricity. Tourism has evaporated.

As The Guardian’s editorial board wrote May 17: “Havana may hope it can stagger on. But Mr. Trump is not patient. The US wants economic reform, the closure of Chinese and Russian intelligence posts and reportedly the removal of President Miguel Díaz‑Canel. That would reinforce the administration’s message that it controls the Americas.”

Fourth, we know our island economy will crash if Key West morphs from a tourist destination to a central military player in Trump’s annexation of Cuba, whether he does that with armed force, a regime change or private dealmaking. Just the idea that Key West could — once again — be at risk from war with Cuba will scare visitors away.

I’m not the least bit concerned about 300 Cuban drones acquired over the past three years. Cuba isn’t going to attack Key West or Guantanamo Bay; that would be suicidal. But it would be foolhardy to dismiss the saber-rattling coming out of the Trump administration. Trump wants Cuba under U.S. control, one way or another. If it takes an invasion, he’ll not be dissuaded.

Neither am I foolhardy. The administration’s fixation on Cuba puts Key West in a delicate and potentially dangerous position. We are a military town and a strategic location for the protection of the U.S. mainland. We forget in peaceable times that Fort Zachary Taylor, the East and West Martello towers and Fort Jefferson were built for exactly that reason. And the current flap over the Navy’s Outer Mole pier evaporates overnight if the Navy decides it needs that space to support actions in Cuba. There’d be no room for Conch trains and tourists.

Ranger Ed and I leave Sunday for Fort Jefferson to camp for four days. I admit the Axios story and Trump’s escalating Cuba rhetoric gave me a moment’s pause. If you don’t hear from us by the end of next week, we might be hunkered down with the ghost of Dr. Mudd. Meanwhile, y’all go ahead and finish your hurricane prep. We might need to practice our evacuation skills.

Learn more:

More U.S. Spy Planes and Drones Are Surveilling Cuba

Cuba accuses US of fabrication after Axios report alleging drone threat

Trump says he can do ‘anything I want’ to the island. It doesn’t belong to him

Cuba: Is our island next?