How a Paradise Became a Death Trap
2023-08-18 00:43:26
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From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is the Daily.
On Monday, we heard the story of Waiola Church and what was lost in the wildfires on Maui. What we didn't know then was the sheer scale of the catastrophe, what it felt like to experience it, and how it could be that so many people died—111 in the latest count.
Today, the miraculous story of one man who survived, and my colleague in Hawaii, Mike Baker, on how an extraordinary set of circumstances came together to turn Lahaina into a death.
It's Friday, August 18th.
Hello?
Hi, is this Idris?
Yes, it is. Hi.
Idris, thank you for taking the time to talk to us, and I wonder, Idris, if you could introduce yourself for me. Tell me your name, your age, where you live, and what your profession is.
My name is Idris Noora. I'm 32 years old. I lived on Prison Street in Maui, Lahaina, and I was the manager at a Hilton property of the Beach and Pool, working sales.
Got it. And I wonder if you could start by telling us, just kind of from the beginning, how your day started?
So, actually, it was my first true day off in a long time, and I woke up in the middle of the night, which was Monday night, Tuesday morning, around 3 or 4 a.m., when we lost power. So it got pretty hot, so I opened up the windows, and by the time I woke up around 6, 7 a.m., I noticed we didn't have service neither.
Cell service.
Yeah. No more front service, no power. It was very windy, so I texted the front desk manager to ask him about my staff. I wanted to make sure they were safe, and they told me that they were keeping the pool open, and honestly, I was just annoyed. I was like, I've been waiting for this day off forever, and no power, it's windy, and I was kind of complaining.
No one knew that it was going to get to that point. We didn't even know it was a hurricane, we just thought it was windy. So I went out on my day and put up the cabinets in my bathroom, and then I started reading my Kindle, and that was pretty much just one of those days.
And were you aware of the fire at that point?
Absolutely not. There was no fire in the morning that I was aware of. We had no warnings at all.
I think it was around noon or one, one of my neighbors came and knocked on my door and he said, hey, you need to come out and see this. So I came out, and in front of my house, I have a little cottage. Behind my house, I could see a lot of smoke, and it was kind of far, maybe like a mile, maybe a little less than a mile away, and it was a lot of smoke. It was black smoke. I go, something's burning.
And all our neighbors were meeting. They were talking about an escape plan, and I said, you know, it's kind of far away. We have scooters and bikes, and I don't think it's safe to be on the road anyways. We'll be safer in our homes. So I called my cat.
I had an outdoor cat, and I called her, and I couldn't find her all day. And then I just gave up, and I went home. And I closed my door.
And then my neighbor came back, maybe an hour later, and he said, there's another fire,
and it was closer. It's actually the street behind us, and I have a scooter. So I actually went to go check out how close the fire was, and it was pretty close, but still kind of far away. It was in front of an apartment complex, and right across from that, there was a fire. And right across from that, there was another house, and there were bushes that were starting to catch on fire.
So I parked my scooter, and I ran into the yard, and I was looking, you know, for the neighbors to ask them for their hose, because I wanted to, like, it was small enough to, like, put down. And so I saw the neighbors. They were already in their car in the driveway, so I knocked on the window, and the guy didn't even say, he didn't even respond. I don't remember him responding. And by the time I went back in the garden to find the hose, another guy saw it and grabbed it, and we were, like, pulling down the fire in his bushes.
And after that, I got on Front Street, which is a street that goes along, you know, the ocean, and I see there's this restaurant up in flames. And I'm like, okay, what's going on? Like, how is this this big? It just didn't make sense. It didn't make sense.
So I couldn't go through. There was so much smoke and fire.
What time is it at that point, Idris? What time is it?
I think, like, 2.30.. You know, had to be 2 or 2.30, something like that. And I remember seeing, like, a white SUV, and this Asian woman was trying to cut in line. She couldn't even cut in line. Clearly, she was panicking.
And I saw people running. And straight in front of me, there's a medical center. And I remember, actually, seeing a line of people trying to get in the medical center. They were all staying in front of it. It was a big parking lot.
So they were taking shelter in it. It was pretty bad. It was pretty bad. I was on Front Street. And so I made a right.
I turned my head, and behind me, there's a whole business on fire. I was like, holy. Like, what's going on? Everything was on fire. Like, I didn't understand how things started to catch on fire.
It didn't make sense. And now I started to panic. So I went back to the neighbors, but the neighbors were all gone.
Idris, what did you think at that moment, when you came back to your house, and the neighbors were all gone?
I felt kind of lost. And the wind, you know, there was wind, and there was trees falling down. And I screamed for my cat. And I saw her run under the house, and she didn't want to come out. You know, so I was panicking.
You know, reality started to set in. And so I said, okay, maybe, you know, the safest place to be right now is here, because I wouldn't even know where to go. And so I'm closing the door, and about five minutes, everything turned black outside.
And so I opened the curtain, and I saw that medical center across the street was up in flames to the sky. Oh, my God. And I couldn't understand. I said, how? Like, I just saw people.
Like, there was nothing like five, ten minutes ago. And it really looked like someone put gasoline all over the building, and it, just, like, took up in flames. It didn't make sense how, like, a stone building could burn so fast.
And so I opened the door, still calling my cat, and I felt something burning on my shoulder, and it was debris like amber. And I look up in the sky, and there's literally fire coming down the sky. It was raining fire. And now I said, I have to get out of here.
What time was that, Idris?
About 3 o'clock, I'd say. I noticed that the neighbors had turned all the hoes and got everything wet. So I took one of the hoes and got my door wet, and, you know, trying to. We still thought that we could prevent, you know, prevent anything from happening. Yeah.
And so, you know, I got everything. I could, you know, all the necessities, clothes, and wallet, and, you know, pictures or whatever, and put everything in two big bags, and I ran out of the house. And as I ran out of the house, there was smoke everywhere. And I saw one of my neighbors coughing. He was right in front of the house, in front of the street, and he was just coughing.
And I said, what are you doing here? He's like, oh, I went to the store, and I said, okay, let's get on my scooter.
So he came behind me on my scooter, and the fire came from uphill. It was coming down. So to me, the safest place of this fire is water. And so, you know, in the panic, I said, we have to go to the harbor. And then I couldn't even get on Prison Street because there was a power line that was down, and it was moving so fast with the wind, and it was so much smoke.
So I went in the parking lot across where the medical center was burning, and it was full of smoke. And I almost hit a car that was parked, but it was on. I saw it with the brake lights, and there was a door open. And this tall Hawaiian man came out, and he was just waving his arms, and he was screaming. I didn't know what he was saying.
He was clearly speaking English, but he was just panicked. I don't remember. I just remember his face, his eyes, and his eyebrows were just raised up to the max, and his mouth. Like I said, he was just speaking gibberish to me. And there was so much noise outside, the wind and the explosions, and I didn't know what he was saying.
And there was no way he could get on the scooter with us, you know. And then I tried to get out of the parking lot, and we got stuck on one of the curbs. And I told Damon, which was my neighbor, to get up, and we pushed the scooter back up. He got back on, and then we got on Front Street.
And on Front Street, I was just chaos. I could hear, you know, screams. And I can see people, but I could hear them scream, scary screams, screams of pain. I've never heard before. There were clearly people burning alive.
Like, it was a deep pain, you know. And people throwing up, and it was just, it was horrifying. It was horrifying to hear that. I'm so glad I can see. It was black because there was so much smoke, but we could clearly hear them all around us.
It felt like we were in hell. The wind itself, the wind was the scariest thing. The wind was so hot, it was burning our skin. It was so strong because everything was on fire. It was just, it felt like someone was pressing a blow dryer on your skin.
And I told Damon, listen, I can't see anything, but you got to tell me when to turn to the harbor, because I can't see nothing. And so we finally got to the harbor, and I left my scooter there. And at the edge of the water, on the harbor, there's a little house, it's called the Harbor Master's Hut. And it's where people come and buy their tickets for the ferry. It's a little brick house, very small.
And we go, and we go in front of it. So we had our back against the wall, and we were facing the ocean. And we're just waiting. We just didn't know what to do.
Did you say anything to him?
No, we were not talking. We didn't know. I mean, in my mind, I'm like, okay, we're going to wait here. At least there's water, which was crazy, by the way. You know, it was so windy.
And at least, like, we're not going to burn. That's what I was thinking. But a couple minutes waiting there, I saw a shadow just run and jump in the water on the side of the house. And I said, Damon, do you see this? And we looked in the water.
There's a big pit bull just drowning in front of us. And that's really when, like, it felt like the beginning of a movie, like a horror movie, you know. And he must have been really scared to do that, because he clearly didn't know how to swim. Yeah. And, you know, the pit bull was so intimidating.
You know, he had the big head and yellow eyes. And I didn't know. I wanted to help him, but I didn't know if he was going to bite me or pull him with him in the water, you know. So I kept calling him and calling him, but he couldn't do it. He tried his best to do it, but he couldn't do it.
And his head kept going underwater, and he kept coming up, and it was always less and less. And I'll never forget the look he gave me in his eyes. He just gave up, and his head went underwater. And I told Damon to hold my feet, and I took my shirt off, and somehow I managed to grab him by the collar and pull him out. And we just – we gave him water, and we tried to calm him down.
He was just walking in circles. He was trying to leave, but every time he walked on the edge of the house, the wind was so hot he would just turn around and come back. So I tried to calm him down. He would sit next to me, and he would sit next to Damon. He was in panic mode, you know.
And we were talking to him, and then I called the police. And I said, hey, we're on the harbor. We're stuck. You guys have to come get us. And the lady was just – she didn't know what to say.
She said, I'm sorry. We can't come, get you. Everything was in flames, and they were overwhelmed. I hung up, you know. And I just remember seeing debris falling from the sky, and our bags kept catching on fire.
So we kept trying to remove debris on ourselves every time it fell on our skin, you know, trying not to burn.
What time was that approximately?
I think it was about maybe 4 o'clock. at this point. Miraculously, I saw on my phone I had one bar of service. So I tried to call my best friend, Yasim, and I told my best friend, hey, I love you. Tell everybody, I love them.
It's going to be okay. Here's my mom's number. Don't call her now. Let her sleep. And then tell her tomorrow we don't have service and I'm fine.
I don't want her to wake up and see the news and panic. So he was confused. Like, what's going on? What do you mean?
Were you preparing because you thought you might not make it?
Oh, yeah. We didn't think we were going to make it. I looked up in the sky and I said, God, please, not today. Not like this. And I said, God, I'm sorry for everything, and I want to be better, and I didn't think I was going to make it.
And after I hung up with him, I called the police again, and she gave me the same answer. She said, I'm so sorry. And, you know, I could feel the frustration in her voice. She was just helpless. She didn't know, and I felt so bad for her, because she probably had so many calls like this.
And so I hung up again, and I was just frustrated.
So at this point, I thought maybe I could get into the Harbormasters' little house. Damon had a knife with him, and he cut the screen off, and I started punching the window with all my strength, all my strength, until I fractured my hand. The window was so thick, it wouldn't even do anything. And so I called the police a third time, and I said, if you guys don't come right now, we're going to die. And she said, you guys have to jump in the water.
And I said, no way. You want us to jump in a hurricane at night, like, with all this smoke? Like, there's no way we can jump. The water was crazy. And she said, you have no choice.
You have to jump in the water. And I hung up, and I looked at Damon. I was like, we have to jump. And Damon said, there's no way I'm jumping. I'm not jumping.
And I told him, listen, either we burn or we drown.
And, you know, I waited a couple more minutes. I tried to convince him, and I said, you know, I'm jumping. There were rocks maybe 100 feet away or 150 feet. I'm not really good with distance, but, you know, like a jetty. And I decided to make for it, and I tried my best.
But, you know, I was breathing smoke the whole time, and you're swimming. You're going nowhere. You're fighting waves like the ocean. You can't do anything. I'm not, like, the best swimmer.
And I finally made it. And I looked back, and I screamed at Damon, and he was just terrified. He was not, you know, he was next to the dog. And I told him to jump, and I kept screaming. And he just didn't want to.
And so, on the other side of the jetty,
I saw three surfers sitting down with a surfboard on their back. And I said, I have to ask them for a surfboard to go and get my friend. And they said, there's no way. The wind is burning our skin. So, they were using the surfboard as a shield.
Even though we were in the middle of the water, the wind was still that hot. So, I went back to the beginning of the rocks, where I started, and I could see him hanging on to the harbor with half his body in the water. And I kept screaming, you need to let go. You need to let go.
And so, at this time, I just made the decision to jump and go get him. So, I got back in the water, and I got back next to him. I tried to go and take his shoes off, but I couldn't even find his feet. The ocean was just pushing me against the wall. And I told him, you have to follow me.
So, I turned back around to the jetty, and I was trying to stay underwater as much as I could because the wind was so hot. But every time I came up, I was just breathing smoke. I mean, I was just breathing smoke for the whole time. So, I got back on the jetty for the second time, and I see he jumped in the water, and he's trying to make his way to us. I see.
And the way he was swimming, I said, there's no way he's going to make it. He was just struggling, just swallowing water and coughing. Somehow, he managed to get very close to the rock, and I pulled him up. It was a miracle that he made it. You know, he's overweight, and he's older.
It was a miracle.
We still had debris falling on us, and we had waves just coming over us. We were holding on to the rocks to not get pulled or sucked in by the ocean. It was just a nightmare.
What time was that?
I don't know, maybe like 5.30.. I don't remember.
It was nighttime. I mean, it looked like nighttime at least.
And then I heard a dog screaming. So I was like, I have to go back.
And I jumped back in the water. You know, I tried to get back on the harbor. I got up, and the dog didn't want to move. He was just too freaked out. He was laying against the wall, his eyes closed, and he was screaming.
There was no way I could carry him. It was a big pit bull, and my hand was fractured or broken. So I thought, if I try to grab him in the water, he's already freaked out. We're both going to drown. He's going to die for sure, and I'm probably not going to make it.
So in one of my bags, I had a blanket, like a small blanket for my sofa. And I dipped it in the ocean five or six times, and I put it on top of the dog. That's all I could do.
And I took one of my bags, and I jumped back in the ocean.
And then I almost drowned.
I was just so exhausted, and I panicked halfway. And I was praying to God, please help me.
And I thank God. I made it to the jetty, and I went back on the other side.
And I talked to Damon, and he was not answering. And I grabbed his hand, and he just held my hand. He was just in shock. He wasn't saying anything. And so I was holding Damon's hand for about a couple hours, and it felt like the wind calmed down.
And I remember I was grabbing Damon's hand, and I said, oh, the wind kind of calmed down. And as soon as I said that, everything lit up. And I turned around, and I saw a line of boats on fire coming towards us.
And I remember saying to Damon, you've got to be kidding me. All the boats that were tied to the harbor, all the ropes burned down, and they were following the current back to sea. And they were all following each other in a perfect line. You would think that someone was on the boat steering them. Crazy.
I had to tell Damon, you're seeing this, right? And he's like, yeah. And they were getting really close to us, almost circling us. You could feel the heat, and they were exploding. And thank God, they followed the current out to sea.
They went straight out instead of going all the way around.
And then, maybe an hour after that, I saw a light far away. And I told Damon, I said, hey, I think there's a boat over there. And we were screaming. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. And they were coming towards us.
Thank God.
And the surfer was screaming. And it was the coast guard. And they were like, we can't get close. You guys have to jump in the water. Because it was so rough.
They were crashing the rocks. And then, out of nowhere, there's a couple that were standing in front of the harbor master's hut. And they had no clothes. They only had shorts or swimming suits. And that guy who had shorts, he was just red.
He was just burnt from the wind. You couldn't see even from there. He was all red. And I kept screaming, jump in the water, jump in the water. But I don't think he was just processing anything.
So the coast guards came and got him. And then they came to us last. And I jumped first. And they got me in. I just lay down on my back.
And I could just see amber just falling on us. Like the sky had no stars. The amber were the stars.
In the sky. That's what it looked like. Just a black sky with red stars. Just falling down.
I was floating on the ocean, but I felt like I was floating in space.
It's hard to describe, because everything happened so fast.
I was thanking God. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I don't deserve this. It was just unbelievable that we made it.
And Damon, he managed to make it. He managed to get in the water. I don't know how. I didn't even see him. But I remember they pulled him in.
And I was like, thank God. We made it.
And I said, oh, how did you guys find us? And they said, we got a call that someone might be on the harbor. So I think that lady, you know, she relayed the call and finally got to us. And I said, thank God, we made it. And he said, oh, no, not yet.
We still have to go through the storm. And I said, where are we going? And he said, we don't know. Everything's on fire.
And I looked behind me and there was just, it was just, it looked like war. It was just flames up to the sky. The whole, I mean, the whole town. In the darkness.
How long were you out there on the boat with him?
Myself forever, but I think it was a couple hours. Something like that. And remember I was saying that the couple that came from the harbor, they had no shirts. The guy was like burnt everywhere and he had like blood oozing from his leg. It was pretty bad.
And then the girl, it wasn't as bad. She came and she gave me a pair of underwear to like cover the smoke. Because there was still smoke out to sea. And I was like, I don't want to put underwear on my nose. And then I recognized it.
And it was my underwear. And I looked at her and she was wearing my shirt and my pair of shorts. And I said, where'd you get this? And she said, oh, I got it from the harbor.
So then I took the underwear and I covered myself. And I was like, okay, this is mine.
Did you tell her?
What did she say?
Yeah, this is my shirt. I bought this in Vegas like 2016.. And she had to cover herself. I get it. She was like in her bathing suit and it was burning.
So she was wearing my clothes.
This was all from your backpack.
This is right from my backpack. The other one that I left there.
Oh, my gosh.
And so we got to Maalia Harbor. And there's a bunch of, you know, Coast Guard waiting for us. And then, you know, they grabbed us and made sure we got to land. And they directed us through to a bus, a city bus.
So where did the bus take you?
To Maui High School. So they made a shelter there. And, I mean, it was just a lot of people. The big TV and the news playing, everybody standing looking. And then, when we arrived, of course, we were like covering in suits and all black.
So everyone was looking at us. And I was barefoot, so people kept staring at my feet.
Everybody knew, you know. We're the ones who survived. You know, everybody that was in the shelter were the lucky ones. So everybody was kind of quiet. It was a quiet night.
And so we signed in with the Red Cross.
And I got examined by the nurse. And she listened to one of my lungs. And she said that my lung, you know, I need to get checked out. And my hand as well. You know, she's like, wow, it's probably broken.
And I got a blanket. And I went and I found the corner of the gym. Like all the way in the back, there was no one. And then I just went by myself. And I just put my headphones on, but I didn't have anything.
Just to kind of stop the noise, the echoes. I needed to be alone.
Could you see, Damien?
Damien was still eating. So he was doing pretty good.
Was he talking to people?
He was talking to everyone. Yeah. Damien is a, yeah, he's a chatter. And when he called me today, he's like, I'll never forget you. He was a little drunk.
And I guess he was coping with it. And, you know, he said that we were brothers for life now.
Did you think that too?
Yeah. I mean, me and him went through something that, you know, not a lot of people went through. So, yeah, it was something I'll never forget.
How long were you in the shelter?
I was there for two days, almost three.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And where are you now, Idris?
We're at a hotel. We just, we're just waiting. We don't know what's going on. So no one knows what they're going to do. I mean, I'm telling you, I don't even have shoes, you know, and I don't want to complain, because I'm alive and I feel like I shouldn't be.
You know, but I don't know what to feel right now. I feel lost.
And I lost literally everything.
Everything I had. And never get it back. And, you know, I was down to like the last cabinets and I had just the curtains to put up in my room. And then I was done in my new place. Everything was brand new.
I worked so hard, you know, to have what I have. And then to find out I was one week away from being insured. And I lost everything. I was. literally, I needed one more curtain for my bedroom, and that's it.
I was home.
Yeah. I worked so hard.
And I feel guilty because I'm complaining about my possession when people lost, you know, their loved ones. Yeah. You know, and I can't imagine what people went through with kids in their arms and grandma and had to, I don't know if I would have made it, you know, the panic to have to care for somebody else like that.
You know, they found a couple hugging in their car, burned down. You know, I can't imagine. I can't imagine what they went through. People with kids and my friend's grandmother, a retirement home, burned down and they can't find her. So I know, friends of mine, their parents and relatives, you know, probably died.
And died for sure.
And so what the hell happened? Like, why? What happened?
It's not. like, you know, Hawaii is known to have hurricanes. Like, why weren't we ready? Like, how is this possible? With all this money from tourism coming in, like, I don't understand how this could have happened.
There was nothing. No warnings, no alarms, nothing at all.
When you think about it now, how do you make sense of it?
What? I don't make sense of it. It's still a miracle that I'm alive and it's still, I mean, you know, it felt like Pompeii. That's what it felt like. Just raining fire and everybody burning.
And the sirens, and then the wind, the explosions. No one knew where to go. But what's going to stick with me the most is definitely the screams. And that dog when he looked at me in the water.
And the guy in the parking lot who was screaming, but I just didn't know what he was saying.
Do you see those things when you close your eyes?
I see them when my eyes are open.
But I'm lucky. I'm lucky. I'm one of the lucky ones. You know, I had to start from scratch. I am lost, but thank God I'm alive.
We'll be right back.
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So, Mike, my colleagues and I at the Daily have been talking to survivors of the Hawaii fire. And we just heard one of those stories from a man named Idris, a survivor. And at the end of our conversation, he had some questions that I think a lot of us have about how so many people could have died. You know, what went wrong? So you've been in Maui reporting and we wanted to ask you some of these questions.
First, I want to start with setting the table with a few things. we do know. Which is, we know that the fire started around 6.30 in the morning, most likely from a downed power line that sparked on dry grass. And we also know that firefighters responded to that and around mid-morning, they declared it contained. But obviously it wasn't.
So why don't you pick up from there, Mike? How did this essentially low-grade brush fire turn into this monster?
Yeah, I mean that day you had a real confluence of factors that set up the disaster. You had some really strong winds coming down the mountainside that a lot of people have attributed to a hurricane passing a few hundred miles to the south. You had a drought that had been in the region for quite some time. You had these really dry, invasive grasses, some non-native species that have been there since the island's plantation days or the aftermath of the plantation days. And, you know, I think you really had this other factor of firefighters being stretched thin.
This was a bad fire day across the island. They were strained across a few different places and didn't have their full capacity in Lahaina when things started getting out of control. And so early morning there was this fire up on the hillside, more than a mile above the commercial district, the front street area of Lahaina. They declare it contained and eventually start going off to do other things. But one of the neighbors I talked to said there was still just bits of smoke, like the ground was hot, like there was still just something smoldering there.
And as the afternoon went on, the winds are roaring and all of a sudden the flames are back. And at that point, the winds are so strong that these little embers that are getting tossed into the air are soaring down the hillside. They're racing down the hillside. The winds are so fast that the fire starts to skip down, and pretty soon it's just headed towards some of the densest housing neighborhoods in town. And the people we've talked to in that neighborhood said they essentially had no chance to prepare for evacuation, no warning that they should be getting out.
The fire was on top of them so fast.
Yeah. To that point, we heard from Idris and other people. we talked to that, you know, there was no alarm, right? No warning. Like people didn't even know to get out until the fire was basically on their doorstep.
Yeah, it's interesting, because the community has these warning sirens throughout town and every month residents there get to hear them. They have this whirring horn sound and it's called an all hazard system. But the county is saying that it's really a system not designed for fire. It's designed for things like a tsunami. They felt like it was really not something that they had planned and considered to use in the event of a fire.
I think a lot of people, a lot of the residents, feel like this would have been the ideal circumstance to use it. Cell service is going down. Electricity was getting knocked out. when there's so many people sitting in their homes and they have no idea what's coming. Something that could jar them to awareness that they may soon be incinerated, I think, would have been, to a lot of people, a big help.
Okay, so once people realize the fire is a big problem and it's starting to roar into the town of Lahaina and they need to get out, what happens then? What do they do? A lot of people we talked to mentioned traffic jams. Everybody on the same road, gunning their engines, trying to get out and getting stuck.
Yeah, you know, I think it's important to know. there's really only two roads in and out of town. And one of them, the fire, was going across. It was closed off due to the fire. The other, we know there were, at different points, power lines that had fallen across the road.
And, critically, once they were on the roads, people had no way to pass them. They were waiting for crews to come clear the roads. You can see the traffic jams in some of the videos starting to build as people wait for a way to get south, a way to get north, a way to get anywhere out of town. And to make matters worse, the fire crews are racing around and initially trying to slow the spread of the fire. But soon, we were talking to some of them that they were tapping into hydrants and the stream was getting weaker.
The spray would come out and the wind was so strong it would just turn to mist. And then, by the time they got further down the hill, the hydrants are basically empty. The county now says that the fire had burned so much so fast that there were homes all over town leaking water. And it left the firefighters with nothing to fight this fire. They were left watching the town burn with no way to stop it.
And instead were forced into basically trying to get people out of town, trying to wreck them. And even then, they were down on Front Street, stuck there. And that's where things really just turned into a death trap.
So, Mike, hearing you talk about all of this and really lay out these problems, you know, clearly this was an extraordinarily unlucky series of events. You know, fire from a downed power line driven by hurricane-forced winds roars into this town. And because of other power lines that are down, the roads are closed. But also, it sounds maybe like some of this could have been avoided. Like, to what degree was this?
bad luck versus human error?
I think there's certainly a sense that this confluence of factors would have been really hard to overcome, that this was going to be a serious and devastating situation, no matter how swift the response once the fire took hold. At the same time, we have a situation with a lot of missed opportunities to have slowed the spread of the fire and saved more people. There's already lawsuits against the electric company, challenging them on whether they should have cut off power before the fire even started. Questions about the crews on the power lines and whether they could have done more to clear roads at the time when people were trying to escape. There's an investigation from the state attorney general that's exploring the overall wildfire and the response.
The warning system, the preparations the county could have done, the resources available for the fire department. There's going to be a lot of questions for, I think, several years.
But I think in the bigger picture, there's going to be a lot of questions about the future of West Maui in a place where so many people want to live. There's so many residents that want to be here, tourists that want to come. It's a special place with a deep history, former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom. And these days, there's a strain on the resources. There's growing drought, there's growing winds, and there's a sense that the wildfire risk here is going to continue expanding as well.
And it really raises some questions about the future of Lahaina at a time when, right now, this community kind of has to start from scratch.
And prevent something with this much collective anguish from ever happening again.
Absolutely.
Mike, thank you.
Sabrina, thank you.
On Thursday, the chief of the Maui Emergency Management Agency resigned. The resignation of Herman Andaya, who cited health reasons for his departure, came one day after he defended not using outdoor sirens to warn about the fire.
We'll be right back.
Here's what else you should know today. On Thursday, the sheriff's office in Fulton County, Georgia, said that it was investigating threats made online against grand jurors who voted to indict former President Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the results of the state's 2020 election. Georgia requires that the jurors be named in the indictment. And soon after it was released, on Monday, the jurors' identities began appearing on social media. Some jurors had their pictures, social media profiles, and possible addresses and phone numbers shared, in some cases with the suggestion that they should be harassed.
Today's episode was produced by Lindsay Garrison, Will Reed, and Sydney Harper. It was edited by Michael Benoit and Liz O'Balin, contains original music by Marianne Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Special thanks to Nicholas Bogle-Burroughs, Sean Huebler, Serge Kowalewski, and Alain Delacarrière. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly.
That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernesi. See you on Monday.
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