Maui Hawaii Wildfires, 97 dead, Aug 2023

[mickey2942]

I am guessing that the corruption is not largely based on cash, but rather "localism"- that can be every bit as fierce paperwork wise as surfer localism.

In the end, Hawaii, along with New Orleans (and the rest of Louisiana), Puerto Rico, and native Indian reservation are very "closed worlds" in many aspects.

Government positions and positions with quasi governmental entities such as local electrical companies, subsidized hospitals are highly sought after and are reserved only for true locals who are accepted as part of the local culture.

This closes off the these positions to outside talent and ability. The talent pool can get even shallower when these positions are further restricted to those locals with certain last names, those with friendship "connections", or those who can give something in return.

The totality creates a world where strange things occur in emergencies. Whether its parking evacuation busses in flood areas with out the keys or Superdome "readiness" in NOLA, or not shutting off electrical lines and pursuing fuzzy "water equity" concepts with a raging fire in Maui.

This is very true. It surprised me, how many people, Indigenous Hawaiians, live in Las Vegas. They have Hawaiian parties, a vibrant Hawaiian culture, in Las Vegas?!

Why? Because as one person told me, it is practically impossible to get really good positions, unless you are connected to the right people and families.

I wouldn't be surprised if many people from Lahaina move to Vegas. They would be welcomed to the "ninth Hawaiian island".

A wave of Aloha: Las Vegas community turns out en masse to support Maui

The phone at 2 Scoops of Aloha Las Vegas Drive Inn has been constantly ringing since Thursday from residents with a similar question: How can we help? The restaurant on South Las Vegas Boulevard has become donation headquarters for Southern Nevada residents bringing supplies to aid families...

lasvegassun.com

Trouble in Paradise: Native Hawaiians being forced out of expensive island life

More Native Hawaiians live in the continental United States than on the islands.

abcnews.go.com

https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2023-01-22/native-hawaiians-flock-to-las-vegas-for-affordable-living

 

[Cryptic]

and of course, there's no easy way to rebuild on an island in the middle of the Pacific.

Thats another good point with the logistics of shipping everything in.

I have a vague understanding that the Hawaii construction industry is uhmm.... "complex" and includes alot of regulations and alot of middlemen (and today, perhaps a few middlewomen).

This ensures that construction dollars get passed through as many people as possible, but it evidently also makes construction even slower and even more expensive that it would already be naturally.

There could be a temptation- or just a plain business need to import construction workers which may not sit well with local workers.

 

[Cryptic]

This is very true. It surprised me, how many people, Indigenous Hawaiians, live in Las Vegas. They have Hawaiian parties, a vibrant Hawaiian culture, in Las Vegas?!

When I last visited Las Vegas, I noticed that the owner of a casino(s) on Fremont street had ties multi generational ties to Hawaii.

The casino had a display illustrating his family's Hawaiian roots and had a lot of Hawaiian employees. One of them got me to try "Spam Sushi" at the fast food restaurant.

 

[Cool Cats]

What Saved The ‘Miracle House’ In Lahaina?​

What Saved The 'Miracle House' In Lahaina?

The historic structure on Front Street is the last house standing in a neighborhood reduced to rubble.

www.civilbeat.org

Trip Millikin said he was shocked and overcome by feelings of guilt when he found out his home had survived the fire almost entirely unscathed.

Flying pieces of burning wood and debris did little more than scorch small patches of his yard and bubble the paint on one wall.

“It looks like it was photoshopped in,” homeowner Trip Millikin said of the house, which stands in such contrast to the surrounding ruins that images of the home have gone viral in recent days.

 

[anneg]

What Saved The ‘Miracle House’ In Lahaina?​

What Saved The 'Miracle House' In Lahaina?

The historic structure on Front Street is the last house standing in a neighborhood reduced to rubble.

www.civilbeat.org

Trip Millikin said he was shocked and overcome by feelings of guilt when he found out his home had survived the fire almost entirely unscathed.

Flying pieces of burning wood and debris did little more than scorch small patches of his yard and bubble the paint on one wall.

“It looks like it was photoshopped in,” homeowner Trip Millikin said of the house, which stands in such contrast to the surrounding ruins that images of the home have gone viral in recent days.

This is an amazing story! A steel roof and lack of vegetation close to the house seem to have been key factors in the house's survival. Its redwood frame may have also helped protect it.

 

[Cool Cats]

This is an amazing story! A steel roof and lack of vegetation close to the house seem to have been key factors in the house's survival. Its redwood frame may have also helped protect it.

Another weird thing. Note the lot next to them, looks untouched by fire but there is no house, so why untouched? I see vegetation that could burn.

 

[Cryptic]

Sadly, more bad news....

The FBI has evidently taken over (whether they phrase it that way is another matter) maintaining the list of missing and increasingly presumed dead individuals.

FBI involvement brings new levels of organization, a national / international reach, and resources in regards to identifying people who survived and taking their names off the list.

Yet.... the list of names continues to grow and is now at 1050.

Hawaii governor says more than 1,000 people still unaccounted for after devastating wildfires

 

[foxyboxy]

Parents find remains of teen son hugging dead dog in Maui home destroyed by wildfire

Grieving parents found the body of their 14-year-old son, and then carried him around half a mile to a police station to be confirmed among the dead.

nypost.com

Grieving parents found the body of their 14-year-old adopted son hugging his dead dog after the Maui wildfires — then carried him around half a mile to a police station to be confirmed among the dead.

Schoolboy Keyiro Fuentes had been home alone enjoying his last day of summer break when the deadliest US wildfires in a century started overwhelming his neighborhood in Lahaina, his mother, Luz Vargas, told CBS News.

 

[Cryptic]

Finally some good news!

Searches of cell phone usage has enabled the list of official missing to drop to: 388. This is a big improvement from 1050 on the previous list.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/25/us/maui-wildfires-unaccounted-for-list/index.html

 

[Gemmie]

Search and recovery of Maui fire victims will continue for several weeks, and divers from the U.S. Navy are now part of the mission.

Col. David Fielder, the Dual Status Commander for Joint Task Force 5-0 Title 10, said the divers arrived Tuesday and are already in the water searching for human remains and mapping where boats have sunk.

[...]

“The dive team was requested from the Maui Fire Department. They’re here to work with the fire department and the Coast Guard for expeditionary and diving salvage in the harbor and waterway,” Fielder said in a press conference with reporters via Zoom Thursday afternoon.

MSN

 

[Gemmie]

Here are the names of those missing on Maui. Officials want you to read every one.​

The “validated list” – curated by the FBI – includes 388 names and was released on Thursday, Maui County said. At least 115 others are confirmed to be deceased in the deadliest US wildfire disaster in over a century.

“We’re releasing this list of names today because we know that it will help with the investigation,” Maui County Police Chief John Pelletier said in the news release. “We also know that once those names come out, it can and will cause pain for folks whose loved ones are listed.”

“This is not an easy thing to do, but we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make this investigation as complete and thorough as possible.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/25/us/maui-missing-people-list-lahaina-wildfire/index.html

 

[SouthAussie]

Another weird thing. Note the lot next to them, looks untouched by fire but there is no house, so why untouched? I see vegetation that could burn.

We have the same thing happen in Aussie bushfires. Much gets burned, some areas inexplicably don't.

Eg: (Please note these are Aussie examples, not photos from Maui)

Link

Link

 

[JerseyGirl]

100 people reported safe in Maui after list released - BBC News

They got in touch with officials hours after a list with 388 names of missing people being published.

www.bbc.co.uk

Within hours of releasing the names of 388 people unaccounted for following the Maui wildfires, 100 were reported safe, the FBI confirmed.

Maui officials have publicly identified 46 peoplewho died in the fire. The latest names, released on Thursday, include a family of four whose remains were found in a burnt car near their home.

They were identified as: 7-year-old Tony Takafua; his mother Salote Tone, 39; and his grandparents Faaoso Tone, 70, and Maluifonua Tone, 73.

Tony is the first confirmed child victim of the wildfire.

 

[ifindedout]

I think some heads will roll after this (BBM):

Four days before fast-moving brush fires engulfed parts of Maui, weather forecasters warned authorities that powerful wind gusts would trigger dangerous fire conditions across much of the island and Hawaii.

The state’s electric utility responded with some preemptive steps but did not use what is widely regarded as the most aggressive but effective safety measure: shutting down the power.

Hawaiian Electric, the utility that oversees Maui Electric and provides service to 95 percent of the state’s residents, did not deploy what’s known as a “public power shutoff plan,” which involves intentionally cutting off electricity to areas where big wind events could spark fires. A number of states, including California, have increasingly adopted this safety strategy after what were then the nation’s most destructive and deadliest modern fires, in 2017 and 2018.

The day before the Maui fires, my region (SE PA) got hit by severe storms, with scattered but numerous power outages of varying impact, though happily not for yours truly. Within walking distance of my home there were a group of about 10 homes without power, caused by one BIG fallen tree that snapped a utility pole. Because the lines weren't broken, they were still energized, yet my utility (PECO) fairly quickly (i.e. that night) cut off power, which was restored about 72 hours later after the offending tree was cut up and a new pole was set in the ground.
On Maui, by comparison, Hawaiian Electric Industries seems to have sat on their hands, either paralyzed by indecision or institutionally incapable of taking swift and decisive action. Heads should roll at HEI, and it does seem that the ball is rolling in that direction.
MOO

 

[airportwoman]

The day before the Maui fires, my region (SE PA) got hit by severe storms, with scattered but numerous power outages of varying impact, though happily not for yours truly. Within walking distance of my home there were a group of about 10 homes without power, caused by one BIG fallen tree that snapped a utility pole. Because the lines weren't broken, they were still energized, yet my utility (PECO) fairly quickly (i.e. that night) cut off power, which was restored about 72 hours later after the offending tree was cut up and a new pole was set in the ground.
On Maui, by comparison, Hawaiian Electric Industries seems to have sat on their hands, either paralyzed by indecision or institutionally incapable of taking swift and decisive action. Heads should roll at HEI, and it does seem that the ball is rolling in that direction.
MOO

If your power goes out, for any reason, and doesn't come on within a few minutes, NEVER assume that somebody else called.

I lost my power for 3 days after the 2020 Midwestern derecho, and found out later that there were two buildings in my apartment complex where NOBODY had contacted the utility, and one of them had an occupant on home dialysis. I'm thinking that they assumed that the rental office would do it. Nope, they only do that for the office itself. Customers are on their own for this.

 

[Cool Cats]

​

Hawaii missing persons list: FBI, Maui release names of 388 people not found after deadly wildfire

The FBI and Maui County officials released a verified list of 388 people who are still missing after the severe Hawaiian wildfire, which left 115 dead.

www.yahoo.com

Press Releases​

Posted on: August 24, 2023

County of Maui releases validated list of names of individuals who remain unaccounted for following

The County of Maui on Thursday released a validated list of the names of 388 individuals who have been reported unaccounted for following the Lahaina wildfire disaster on August 8, 2023.

www.mauicounty.gov

​

 

[ifindedout]

Bare electrical wire and leaning poles on Maui were possible cause of deadly fires

In the first moments of the Maui fires, when high winds brought down power poles, slapping electrified wires to the dry grass below, there was a reason the flames erupted all at once in long, neat rows -- those wires were bare, uninsulated metal that could spark on contact. Videos and images...

www.yahoo.com

Videos and images analyzed by The Associated Press confirmed those wires were among miles of line that Hawaiian Electric Co. left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105 mile per hour winds.

A 2019 filing said it had fallen behind in replacing the old wooden poles because of other priorities and warned of a “serious public hazard” if they “failed.”

Google street view images of poles taken before the fire show the bare wire.

It’s “very unlikely” a fully-insulated cable would have sparked and caused a fire in dry vegetation, said Michael Ahern, who retired this month as director of power systems at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

 

[BeachSky]

I flew into Oahu yesterday.
It was dense with clouds that hung like a giant sand castle city. Majestically up above the water and the islands.
Like they are not far, watching over
I tried to capture it.

 

[JerseyGirl]

Brushfires in Maui cause evacuations near site of Lahaina wildfires

A brushfire on Maui over the weekend triggered both an evacuation order and the PTSD of many Lahaina survivors.

www.dailymail.co.uk

brushfires on Saturday again sparked evacuations

Saturday afternoon, Hawaii Governor Josh Green issued an area alert with an evacuation order for parts of Kaanapali - which is just one town over from Lahaina.

The evacuation order was lifted at 5pm, when the fire had been 90 percent contained. Power was restored to the area by 7pm.

There were no reports of injuries or damage caused by the blaze.

 

[10ofRods]

Guardian.co.uk has a current article about the bare wires and leaning poles (!) and here's yesterday's article on the ecocide that led to Maui's disaster:

How 19th-century pineapple plantations turned Maui into a tinderbox

Land privatization and water depletion set the stage for the Lahaina fire 150 years ago. Now, land companies may benefit even more

www.theguardian.com