Terrifying way teens survived wildfires in Maui, Hawaii
Survivors of the devastating wildfires in Hawaii have detailed the terrifying way they tried to escape the flames.
Survivors are sharing the terrifying lengths they went to desperately escape wildfires in Hawaii as the official death toll heads towards 100 and the government faces criticism for lack of warnings.
Devastating video shows people huddled in the water off the historic tourist town of Lahaina in Maui, trying to cover their noses and mouths from the thick smoke as the town in front of them burned to the ground.
Another clip shows people jumping into choppy waters with backpacks as embers flew around them.
As news of the fatal fires made its way across the world last week, the US Coast Guard said they had rescued at least a dozen people who had jumped into the ocean to escape the fast-moving flames.
Now, those survivors are sharing just how frightening the ordeal was.
Two survivors told US television station Fox 11 they waited in the water for eight hours before being rescued.
“It sounded like a giant blow torch,” Joan Hayashi, who lives in Lahaina, said.
She said they had to run in the ocean and were in the ocean around eight hours as flames were hitting.
“Things were falling from the palm trees.”
Teen brothers Noah Tomkinson, 19, and Milo Tomkinson, 13, tried to escape the town in their car with their mum but ended up having to leave the car and jump in the ocean.
They told CBS News they waded in the water for five hours.
“This is like last resort time, because the fire was like across the street at this point,” Noah recalled.
“So we were like, yeah, we’ve got to jump in the ocean … and then, once we got in the water, just all the wind and just all the fire, and the smog just are coming straight toward us.”
Noah said he had to help his mum stay afloat who “couldn’t breathe well” and kept taking on water.
When the flames started to die down, the family went ashore again and had to hide their faces from sheets of metal flying over their heads.
They sought shelter in one of the few cars that hadn’t burned and thought they weren’t going to make it out due to the thick blanket of smoke, but were eventually rescued by three firemen.
“I was like so relieved to be alive,” Noah told CBS.
“But I felt guilty, like, ‘what about all the people that didn’t make it, what about all the people that aren’t in getaway cars getting to safety right now?’”
The entire time their dad was on the other side of the island worried for his family’s safety.
Noah is one of many families turning to GoFundMe after losing everything in the fires but their lives.
An Australian couple are raising money for a cousin whose family got out “just in the nick of time” but lost their home and all their possessions.
“We are heartbroken and grieving so much loss for our family and others on the island,” the West Australian couple wrote about Lahaina residents Erick and Ara Punzalan, and their two-year-old son.
Another Australian is asking for donations for her sister who is originally from Sydney but has lived in Maui for six years.
Nathalie Wilson Smith, her husband Matt and their two young sons escaped their home in Lahaina but lost all of their belongings in the blaze.
Death toll at 93
Officials say 93 people are known to have died, but warned the figure was likely to rise as recovery crews with cadaver dogs continued the grim task of searching burned out homes and vehicles in Lahaina.
Lahaina was almost completely destroyed by the fast-moving inferno early Wednesday morning, local time, with survivors saying there had been no warnings.
When asked Sunday why none of the island’s sirens had been activated, Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono said she would wait for the results of an investigation announced by the state’s attorney general.
“I’m not going to make any excuses for this tragedy,” Ms Hirono, a Democrat, told CNN’s State of the Union.
“We are really focused, as far as I’m concerned, on the need for rescue, and, sadly, the location of more bodies.”
More than 2200 buildings were damaged or destroyed as the fire tore through Lahaina, according to official estimates, wreaking $US5.5 billion ($8.5b) in damage and leaving thousands homeless.
“The remains we’re finding are from a fire that melted metal,” said Maui Police Chief John Pelletier. “When we pick up the remains … they fall apart.”
That was making identification difficult, he added, appealing for those with missing relatives to give DNA samples that might speed the process.
Mr Pelletier said cadaver dogs still had a vast area to search in the hunt for what could still be hundreds of people unaccounted for.
“We’re going as fast as we can. But just so you know, three per cent – that’s what’s been searched with the dogs,” he said.
Questions over alert system
The wildfire is the deadliest in the United States since 1918, when 453 people died in Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to the non-profit research group the National Fire Protection Association.
Questions are being asked over how prepared authorities were for the catastrophe, despite the islands’ exposure to natural hazards like tsunamis, earthquakes and violent storms.
In its emergency management plan last year, the State of Hawaii described the risk wildfires posed to people as being “low.”
Yet the layers of warning that are intended to buffer a citizenry if disaster strikes appear not to have operated.
Maui suffered numerous power outages during the crisis, preventing many residents from receiving emergency alerts on their cell phones.
No emergency sirens sounded, and many Lahaina residents spoke of learning about the blaze from neighbours running down the street or seeing it for themselves.
“The mountain behind us caught on fire and nobody told us jack,” resident Vilma Reed, 63, told AFP.
“You know when we found that there was a fire? When it was across the street from us.”
Ms Reed, whose house was destroyed by the blaze, said she was dependent on handouts and the kindness of strangers, and was sleeping in a car with her daughter, grandson and two cats.
For some survivors, the difficult days after the tragedy were being worsened by what they see as official intransigence, with roadblocks preventing them from getting back to their homes.
Maui police said the public would not be allowed into Lahaina while safety assessments and searches were ongoing – even some of those who could prove they lived there.
Some residents waited for hours Saturday hoping to be given access to comb through the ashes or look for missing pets or loved ones, but police warned that people entering the disaster zone could be fined – or even jailed.
When asked about growing anger at the response, Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono told CNN she understood the frustration because “we are in a period of shock and loss.”
– with AFP
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