1000 are still missing per ABC news. Sounds like there was 0 warning for the residents from officials.
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Power and cell went out early. It will likely be a case study for emergency response and building resiliency. Makes satellite cell/internet seem more useful.
One of the reports I heard made it sound like there was not even a record of officials attempting to use the warning system to send out a notification. Itās all still early and a lack of information, so who knows.
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How absolutely awful. I love Maui and itās heartbreaking.
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Other things I learned today:
The Lahaina fire was declared 100% contained at 9am that day. Firefighters left to help fight another large fire. It flared back up later that afternoon and took off rapidly.
The emergency sirens in Lahaina were never sounded. Perhaps thatās was because telecommunications went down early as was pointed out previously.
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CoreLogic says it will cost $1.1B to rebuild residential structures in Lahaina. That seems low if the FEMA estimate is correct.
Well whatās the ratio of damaged homes vs businesses? I thought the damage was more where the businesses are.
That FEMA graphic says 86% residential structures
Death toll is now 93. NBC mentioned in their report that only 3% of the properties have been cleared. A team of 150 (FEMA personnel i believe) is on the way to help with the effort.
This highlights the enormous challenge it will be to rebuild the area. This was 8% of the island (and likely a disproportionate share of resources) destroyed. Local officials are overwhelmed.
FEMA needs to take over, provide temporary shelters, coordinate the response, recovery, cleanup. The absolute scale is much smaller, but this is starting to look like a Katrina quality response from FEMA.
I think Biden has about 24 hours left on this one to make something big happen, mostly because this is the weekend and he has until the evening news tomorrow before anyone will be paying attention.
Agree on all counts.
That said, if theyāre getting all of the tourists out then some of the undamaged hotels/rentals can probably be pressed into service to house locals.
One thing Iāll say is that I went to Maui in 2009 during the recession and they desperately needed tourists. When Maui is reopened to tourism they will very badly need us to go.
Maybe we should plan a Maui Potacular (not that Maui is the Po) for 2024 or 2025.
Just to nitpickā¦ the way that disaster response is structured in the US, it works in a hierarchical manner. Local officials (Maui County, in this case) have the primary response responsibility. When they realize that the response will exceed their capability to respond (directly or with mutual aid), they are supposed to request help from the state. When the state realizes that the disaster is going to be too much for them to handle, they request assistance from the feds.
I havenāt paid close enough attention to see how that process has been working out in this case. Incompetence at the lower levels of the process can lead to the higher levels seeming incompetent as well. Combine that with the implications of the rapidity with which the disaster occurred, and the logistics challenges of providing aid to an island in the middle of the Pacific, with limited infrastructureā¦ even if disaster response worked optimally, itād still look bad.
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Way too early to claim response is failing. Remote location will play a huge role.
Coincidentally, before the fires broke outā¦
This is the biggest issue IMO, though weāve done great things overseas. āTerrible, but great.ā
Perhaps Iām being too harsh, and maybe more is happening than what has been communicated, or this isnāt a big enough story outside of Hawaii for me to see much on what is going on. I thought Iād at least be seeing something like a snippit of a local official providing updates.
Generally in a county-level disaster, unless itās the story of the news cycle, to get good information seek out the local news sources. (And even in broader disasters, the national news sources will tend to be a bit myopic.)
For example:
Hawaii governor says the Lahaina fire traveled 1 mile per minute
Suit filed against Hawaiian Electric alleging negligence
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/hawaiian-electric-industries-shares-plunge-40-amid-deadly-maui-wildfire-scrutiny-2023-08-14/
If this is like some other big western wildfires where power lines allegedly caused the fire, could go all the way up the tower.
This has NOT been implied in this disaster, but in other wildfires there has been meaningful exposure to tree trimmers.