Hawaii wildfires: Maui death toll rises to 101
The death toll in the Maui wildfires has risen and is expected to further soar as the painstaking search for victims continues.
The death toll in the Maui wildfires has risen to 101, Hawaii’s governor said, as the search for victims of the blaze that decimated the tourist town of Lahaina continues.
“101 lives have now been lost,” Governor Josh Green said when annoucing the death toll, which previously stood at 99 victims.
Authorities have gone through about 32 per cent of the search area, CNN reported, and the death toll could still rise significantly.
The development came after survivors told of looting and armed robberies in Lahaina after the fire-ravaged side of the island was abandoned without food, water and medical supplies.
US President Joe Biden announced he would visit Hawaii in the coming weeks, in his first public comments since the disaster struck last week.
“My wife Jill and I are going to travel to Hawaii as soon as we can, that’s what I’ve been talking to yways)governor about,” he said.
“I don’t want to get in the way – I’ve been to too many disaster areas, but I want to go and make sure we got everything they need. I want to be sure we don’t disrupt the ongoing recovery efforts.”
While rescue crews are working to deliver first aid and supplies to survivors, Jeremy Aganos says it was “utter chaos” for residents feeling abandoned without shelter or answers.
Mr Aganos’s restaurant and food truck, the Coconut Caboose, were among the few businesses to have survived on Front Street in Lahaina.
But he added to KITV4 that it made them a target for looters with nowhere else to go for food and water.
Lahaina resident Barrett Procell told the broadcaster that looters weren’t the enemies, they were families in survival mode while waiting for supply routes to reopen.
“When your children and are here starving after almost burning to death and the police won’t let people drive in to give you necessities, you may turn to desperate measures,” he said.
“It is unfortunate people are turning to looting right now, but it’s about helping them and not villianising them.”
Commercial sports fisherman Bryan Sizemore, 48, said he chased off several looters at gunpoint.
“My boat exploded as a result of the flames, but my business somehow made it. But there’s been looters at my place, people stealing gas,” Sizemore told NBC News.
“I’ve been sleeping there in my car … They’re poking holes into the gas tanks and draining them off.”
Governor Green said hundreds of hotel rooms are being made available for free to victims, with Airbnb vacation homes being repurposed as longer-term rehousing, available for at least 36 weeks.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said at a press conference that they’ve not received official reports of looting, but that they have officers patrolling suspicious areas.
“Not one victim was standing by and no report has been made. Could there have been cases like this and they’ve been reported properly, yes but as of now, we didn’t get those calls,” said Chief Pelletier.
The intensity of the fire and scale of the destruction have made identification of human remains difficult, with some corpses disintegrating as they are uncovered by searchers.
OPRAH TURNED AWAY FROM SHELTER
A camera crew accompanying Oprah Winfrey as she visited Maui wildfire survivors inside a Hawaii shelter was turned away due to a no-media policy inside, officials said.
According to the New York Post, the media mogul spoke to Maui residents at the War Memorial Complex without cameras due to the ongoing policy by county officials.
It comes as Winfrey promised to make a “major donation” to Hawaii’s fire relief efforts.
“And at some point, I will make a major donation after all of the smoke and ash have settled here and we figure out what the rebuilding is going to look like,” she said.
Winfrey, who lives on Maui part-time, has made multiple trips to comfort those impacted by the raging fires.
“Oprah was able to visit our shelter and we thank her for instructing media journalists and camera crews to remain outside,” the County of Maui wrote on Facebook.
“We welcome Oprah to continue to uplift our community’s spirit and give her aloha to victims of the tragic disaster.
“Her visit inside of the shelter today was truly heartwarming and we appreciate her understanding of our policy of having no camera crews or reporters accompanying dignitaries and celebrities in our emergency shelters.”
The statement from county officials came after the local Star Advertiser News initially reported that Winfrey and a camera crew following her were denied entry because media are not allowed to enter the shelter.
Just days ago, Winfrey spoke on camera to the BBC inside the shelter about giving residents a helping hand.
“It’s a little overwhelming, you know,” Winfrey told the outlet on video late last week.
“But I’m really so pleased to have so many people, you know, supporting, and people are just bringing what they can and doing what they can.”
It’s unclear how the BBC was able to interview her inside the shelter while the American crew was barred from the facility.
Winfrey, who has been living on the island part-time for 15 years and owns 800 hectares of land, said she asked residents what they needed before coming back with items like pillows, shampoo, baby nappies and sheets.
She has visited the emergency shelter three times already, according to Hawaii News Now.
“I brought personal hygiene products and the other day it was towels and sheets and pillows and the day before that it was water,” she told the local news outlet, speaking outside the shelter.
Winfrey promised to help those displaced and devastated by the historic fire for as long as needed.
“In a week or two, all the cameras will be gone and the rest of the world is going to move on with their lives and we’re all still going to be here trying to figure out what is the best way to rebuild,” she told the outlet.
“I will be here for the long haul, doing what I can.”
FLEETWOOD MAC STAR SAYS SITUATION ‘CATASTROPHIC’
British rock star Mick Fleetwood, who has made Hawaii his home for decades, has said the situation in Lahaina is “catastrophic”.
The Fleetwood Mac drummer told Sky News that the disaster has been “an incredible shock for everyone” – and described the scene as “complete devastation”.
Fleetwood revealed he was in Los Angeles visiting family when the fires broke out but flew back immediately, bringing supplies with him.
“These hills were ablaze and I wasn’t there … I was feeling helpless, and switches were going on and off as to what to do.”
Fleetwood’s house was not damaged but the town of Lahaina, where he owns a popular restaurant, has been decimated. His restaurant, Fleetwood’s on Front St, was about to celebrate its 11th anniversary this week – but it has been destroyed by the blaze, and many of his staff have lost everything.
“It’s an incredible shock for everyone,” he said.
“The whole town of Lahaina is no more. That in itself is a statement that leads you immediately to the people who lived there.
“Selfishly, I haven’t lost a family member. I didn’t lose my house. Yeah, it could have happened, but it didn’t happen … I’m really lucky. Now, what the hell can I do?
“The immediacy is finding people. The immediacy is communicating and knowing who’s here and who’s safe.”
The legendary rocker said he decided to speak out in order to keep the tragedy at the forefront of people’s minds.
“What I can do and I’m doing is being an advocate to say ‘pay attention to what is going on’ … that’s actually way more helpful than going down and crying in Lahaina … that will happen, I’m sure, but not now.”
Many locals in Lahaina fear affluent outsiders and land developers will see the charred land as a golden goose, something which Fleetwood said he would be “waving a flag” against.
“The thought of it becoming some form of playground with no reference to the dignity of that town, to me, would be abhorrent,” he said.
As scientists warn of climate change fuelling more extreme weather events, Fleetwood says “there are always lessons to be learned”.
He says there should be “a quiet reverence to keeping our eyes and ears open to the world that we live in. And … not living with the continuum of regret, regret and regret.”
KIDMAN ‘DEVASTATED’ BY HAWAII FIRES
It comes as Nicole Kidman made an emotional call to action after wildfires devastated her birthplace of Hawaii.
The Australian actress, who was born in Honolulu, described her heartbreak in an Instagram Story post on Sunday local time.
“I am shaken by the devastation in Hawaii and feel so deeply for the loss that people are experiencing,” Kidman said.
“I was born in Hawaii and I have such love and connection to the island. My family and my mother share the concern for everyone whose lives have been hurt and destroyed.”
Kidman said she and her family had donated to charities that were assisting in recovery efforts for the Hawaiian people, and encouraged her fans to follow suit.
Kidman was born in Hawaii and given the Hawaiian name Hokulani which means “heavenly star” and was inspired by the name of a baby elephant born around the same time at Honolulu Zoo.
Kidman’s parents, Antony, a biochemist and psychologist, and Janelle, a nursing instructor, worked in the US for a period in the 1960s.
Kidman’s family moved back to Australia when she was four, making their home in Sydney.
DRONE FOOTAGE CAPTURES APOCALYPTIC SCENES
Heartbreaking drone footage has captured apocalyptic scenes from Hawaii with many homes reduced to ashes after they were scorched by deadly wildfires.
More than 2200 structures were damaged or destroyed as the fire tore through Lahaina, according to official estimates, wreaking $5.5 billion in damage and leaving thousands homeless.
Drone footage captured by Javier Cantellops, who said he was flying his drone to help assess the damage to the town, shows residents returning to charred buildings and scorched cars in the wildfires’ wake.
Lahaina, a town of more than 12,000 and former home of the Hawaiian royal family, has been reduced to ruins, its lively hotels and restaurants turned to ashes.
A banyan tree at the centre of the community for 150 years has been scarred by the flames but still stands upright, its branches denuded and sooty trunk transformed into an awkward skeleton.
Nearly a week after the island was decimated, Maui County officials said while only two victims have been properly identified, only 3 per cent of the area has been surveyed so far.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier is urging survivors of the fires with missing loved ones to provide DNA samples to help the already difficult mission of identifying the dead.
“We need you to do the DNA test. We need to identify your loved ones,” Mr Pelletier said.
Hawaiian authorities have begun a probe into the handling of the fire, with residents saying there was no warning.
“The mountain behind us caught on fire and nobody told us jack,” said local Vilma Reed.
“You know when we found that there was a fire? When it was across the street from us.”
However, lawyers investigating the cause of the fire said it was the result of damaged equipment owned by Hawaiian Electric.
“All evidence — videos, witness accounts, burn progression, and utility equipment remaining — points to Hawaiian Electric’s equipment being the ignition source of the fire that devastated Lahaina,” lawyer from Watts Guerra firm Mikal Watts, whose is among three investigating the fire, told Bloomberg.
Singleton Schreiber and Frantz Law Group firms agreed, and said their probes have reached the same conclusion and that Hawaiian electric’s damaged infrastructure sparked the flames that destroyed the resort city of Lahaina last week.
INITIAL RESPONSE CRITICISED
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.
The death toll surpassed 2018’s Camp Fire in California, which virtually wiped the small town of Paradise off the map and killed 86 people.
Maui suffered numerous power outages during the crisis, preventing many residents from receiving emergency alerts on their cell phones.
No emergency sirens were sounded, and many Lahaina residents have spoken of learning about the blaze because of neighbours running down the street.
“The mountain behind us caught on fire and nobody told us jack,” resident Vilma Reed told reporters.
“You know when we found that there was a fire? When it was across the street from us.” Reed, whose house was destroyed by the blaze, said she was depending on handouts and the kindness of strangers, while sleeping in a car with her daughter, grandson and two cats.
In its emergency management plan last year, the State of Hawaii described the risk wildfires posed to people as being “low”.
Some residents who fled the flames have also expressed anger at a roadblock put up preventing them from returning to their homes.
Maui police said members of 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 hoping to be allowed in to comb through the ashes or look for missing pets or loved ones.
When asked about growing anger at the response, Ms Hirono told CNN she understood the frustration because “we are in a period of shock and loss.”
Maui’s fires follow other extreme weather events in North America this summer, with record-breaking wildfires still burning across Canada and a major heatwave baking the US southwest.
Europe and parts of Asia have also endured soaring temperatures, with major fires and floods wreaking havoc. Scientists say human-caused global warming is exacerbating natural hazards, making them both more likely and more deadly.
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Originally published as Hawaii wildfires: Maui death toll rises to 101
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