A few more thoughts on the Lahaina fires relating to Sirens, Maui County Emergency Management Agency Director , School Closings, Water, West Maui Land Company, Muzzling Fire Fighters, Land Grab, Governors Emergency Proclamation Relating to Housing, on July 17, 2023 which created the Building Beyond Barriers Working Group that is now working on the Lahaina Rebuild , and Toxins such as Dioxin
<Too long for Email>
So first, lets start with Maui County Emergency Management Agency Director Herman Andaya addressing media for the first time Wednesday and resigned Thursday, one day after he defended his decision not to sound warning sirens as wildfires swept across the island.
Which leads us to the sirens. Should they have been sounded and when should they have been sounded?
Andaya said sounding the sirens wasn’t an option officials considered because they’re “mainly used for tsunamis.” That’s why they’re mostly located on the coast, he said.
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But the state’s own website says the sirens are useful for many kinds of emergencies.
“The all-hazard siren system can be used for a variety of both natural and human-caused events; including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents, and more,” the site states.
Andaya wasn’t on the island when the fires started, and he hasn’t made any appearancesat press conferences since the disaster occurred.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/was-mauis-emergency-operations-chief-in-over-his-head/
The public is trained to seek higher ground in the event that the siren is sounded," Andaya said at a news conference, explaining that the sirens, located mostly on the coastline, are mainly used to alert the population of tsunamis.
"Had we sounded the siren that night, we were afraid that people would have gone mauka," Andaya continued. "Mauka" is a common Hawaiian phrase that means "on the mountainside of the road." He added: "And if that's the case, then they would have gone into the fire."
Hawaii's Governor Josh Green defended Andaya during the press conference, saying he would have thought of a tsunami hearing the sirens blasting. Green has said that an investigation and review of the state's response to the emergency is ongoing.
https://www.newsweek.com/who-herman-andaya-maui-chief-growing-pressure-fire-response-1820427
Do they really think people are so stupid? People there must know about Earthquakes and Tsunamis. If you feel a quake and then you hear the siren, you run for the hills without delay. But there were no quakes felt that day. People must know that Tsunamis take awhile to arrive if a strong quake is too far away to be felt. They probably have time to pack and check whats up. And for those few that rush out to head for the hills they will probably smell and maybe see the smoke , and they wont run toward a fire without turning on their car radio to see whats happening.
So I call BS on Andaya and Green.
And to compound matters, after having over a week to decide how he is going to reply the idiot says this
"I do not" regret not sounding the sirens, Maui Emergency Management Agency Administrator Herman Andaya told CBS News at a news conference Wednesday in his first public comments since the wildfires broke out.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maui-wildfires-herman-andaya-official-defends-decision-not-to-activate-sirens-i-do-not-regret-it/
We know the first fires broke out in the morning on the perimeter of Lahaina and was contained well before noon. Should the sirens have been activated then? Probably too soon.
Other fires break out in the afternoon and here it gets a bit tricky. Firefighters were having an issue with water, perhaps insufficiently staffed, cell service and 9/11 service-begins to be interrupted, winds are picking up big time and the fires look to be getting out of control before 4 pm at which time text alerts were sent out, and by then it was almost too late in some areas, but not all.
A good time to have sounded the sirens would probably be no later than 3:30 pm
But here is the problem, Andays is the guy who makes that call, but he is on Waikiki, attending, wait for it a “FEMA disaster preparedness seminar called the Pacific Partnership Meeting”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mauis-top-emergency-official-sound-sirens-fires-approached-rcna100538
Remember this from 9/11?
MR. RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI: …we selected Pier 92 as our command center. And the reason Pier 92 was selected as the command center was because on the next day, on September 12th, Pier 92 was going to have a drill. It had hundreds of people here, from FEMA, from the federal government, from the state, from the State Emergency Management Office, and they were getting ready for a drill for biochemical attack." – 9/11 Commission (05/19/04)
Nobody asks who Andays was in contact with or when he was contacted when he made the decision not to sound the sirens. Maybe at 1 pm it was a perfectly reasonable call, not at 3:30 pm.
In the conference he said he feared sounding the sirens would have residents running up into the mountains at night thinking it was a Tsunami. But night time was way too late, the fires were already at Front Street when it was still light. Governor Green made similar statements regarding the fire being in the late evening, but the fires were already serious in the late afternoon.
By 10:25 pm the whole city was engulfed which could be seen by satellite but the time for evacuation was late afternoon
10:25 pm
Without knowing when Andays made his decision and how often he was updated on events its hard to say more on his decision at the time
The Fire Chief was also away. Where was he, the same FEMA conference?. How convenient, the top 2 decision makers being away before disaster strikes.
So who exactly was in charge? I have no idea but I think it was probably the Mayor since the Fire Chief was also away. Here is Mayor Bissen at 1:30 pm on August 8
He starts off talking about Kula fire, at the time Lahaina fire was contained but Kula which was far away upcountry was not. Seemed most of concern was Kula where they had 29 fire fighters (all of Maui has only about 65)
My gut feeling is the sirens would have helped some people get away earlier, but given the fact there were only 2 ways out and the the way the fire progressed so rapidly, there still would have been some people who would have been stuck. Elderly, disabled, unattended children, those without cars, etc
On Twitter I see some mention of them closing the schools like it was a bad thing. Three of the schools were on the outskirts that were not badly affected by the fire.
The 3 schools were to the left. But there were no classes scheduled on 8/8 as it was a Teachers Day. They were not cancelled suddenly due to wind or fire.
Those 3 schools will be reopened
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There was one Elementary School near Front St where classes were cancelled. That was a very good thing. That school got wiped out. Imagine little kids getting out school at 2:30 pm and walking home on that day?
Somebody in Lahaina made a good decision. Give credit where it is due, it might be the only smart thing done that day.
I had understood the quick spread of the fire East was due to the North Easterly winds coming down the mountain and pushing the fires to the seashore, but the fire also spread quite a bit North, so this puzzles me a bit. Seems there must have been multiple ignitions for this to spread North unless the wind pushed it in this direction.
Here is the view of the damage from a higher elevation looking toward the ocean. That fire travelled a long way North from the original fire
However, given boats in the water caught fire it would seem the spread of fire by the wind was toward the water (West)
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I’d love to see some satellite imagery showing the spread of fire from 2 pm onward, as something just doesn’t seem right to me, although I guess the wind could have shifted
Maybe I am not the only one who thinks something is not right.
Members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were sent to the island on Thursday to find out exactly where the fire started and how it was sparked, NBC News reported.
The ATF has sent one electrical engineer, two certified fire investigators, a certified fire investigator candidate and an arson and explosives group supervisor, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. They are part of the agency’s National Response Team, which has been activated 21 times this fiscal year and 910 times since it was started in 1978,
Of course, are they there to investigate or cover up?
Now lets go back to the morning fires for a refresher.
6:46 a.m.
Erika Pless woke her boyfriend, Dylan Medina, after she spotted the fire across the street
At 6:46 a.m. on Aug. 8, Dylan Medina snapped this photo of flames from across Lahainaluna Road shortly after a power line started a fire, he said.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/lahaina-fire-start-controversy-18300089.php
9:00 a.m.
County officials reported that the fire was “100% contained”.
9:26 a.m.
The National Weather Service in Honolulu issues red flag and high wind warnings as the fire threat increases.
3:30 p.m.
A Lahaina fire flareup prompts evacuations, a road closure (Lahaina Bypass)
Lahaina Bypass — the road constructed in 2013 after residents complained for years that they might be trapped on the town’s single in-and-out road
4:45 p.m.
Evacuations continue for several Lahaina neighborhoods after an earlier flare-up closes the Lahaina Bypass.
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the area around the Salvation Army on Shaw
Now a tourist after checking into hotel.
4:17 p.m.
Gills said, an emergency alert blared from their phones, awakening them from a nap and informing them of the fire for the first time. “Evacuate your family and pets now, do not delay,” it read. “Expect conditions that may make driving difficult.”
The Gills credit the message with potentially saving them from disaster. Even as they fled the hotel, other people were checking in. As they drove toward Kahului Airport — a slow, gridlocked drive that included dodging downed power lines — they saw a few tourists on the side of the road going swimming.
“It was very clear nobody had any idea how dangerous the coastline was at this point, or how dangerous the road conditions were,” Ms. Gill said. She believes they were quicker to leave because they are both from the Western United States and familiar with how dangerous and fast-moving wildfires can be.
Still, she wonders: What if they had turned their phones off?
And a Resident
As Ms. Denton Fuqua and her husband fled their house, police officers directed them away from the main arteries out of town and toward Front Street, the historic commercial street that runs along the ocean. Cars were bumper to bumper, and moving at a crawl. Electrical wires flailed overhead and the smoke was choking.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/15/us/hawaii-maui-lahaina-fire.html
So an Alert seems not to have been sent out until 4:17 pm and police were preventing residents from leaving via the Lahaina bypass which seems like it would have been the safer exit
The other thing which has me shaking my head and wondering how it can be true
With wildfires ripping across West Maui on Aug. 8, a state water official delayed the release of water that landowners requested to help protect their property from damage and stop the spread. The water standoff played out over much of the day and the water didn’t come until too late. The dispute involved the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ water resource management division and West Maui Land Co., which manages agricultural and residential subdivisions in West Maui.
According to accounts of four people with knowledge of the situation, M. Kaleo Manuel, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and DLNR’s deputy director for water resource management, initially refused West Maui Land Co.’s requests for additional water to help prevent fires from spreading to properties managed by the company. Manuel eventually released water but not until after the fire had run its course.
His office has not yet commented on the delay of water resources.
So this seems a bit strange to me. The fires in Lahaina were already contained at the time the request was made, why were they needing more water?. For the firefighters in Kula?
So a crazy thought popped into my mind. West Maui Land Company is also a big Real Estate and Property Developer. Cui Bono. They also control much of the water supply. Turn it off, blame Department of Land and Natural Resources, lobby for more water and profit from the Rebuild. Not to mention property values in other parts of West Maui that they own jump sky high due to a housing shortage.
Not making any accusations, but I would investigate if someone at West Maui Land cut off water to firefighters in Lahaina
Lets look at some recent history
In March 2018 streamflow in Kauaʻula Valley was restored by the state Commission on Water Resources (CWRM), which is attached to the Department of Land and Natural Resources. But the West Maui Land Co., a successor to the Pioneer Mill and its subsidiary the Launiupoko Irrigation Co., initially refused to comply with the CWRM decision.
This had a profound impact on the kuleana landowners in Kauaʻula Valley, with an estimated population of 70, who found themselves with little if any water available to fight the 2018 wildfire linked with Hurricane Lane.
“Every house on our property was lost except two houses. The only two houses that stood after that fire was my house and my dad’s house,” Palakiko said. “Our water lines were burnt, so we had to scoop water with buckets from the ‘auwai. So that’s how important this water was to us. If we didn’t have this water that is running, our house would have burnt just like everyone else's.”
There are no nearby fire hydrants in Kauaʻula Valley, just one stream, which families rely on for their crops, livestock, household needs, and more importantly fire protection.
Flash forward to August 8,2023
West Maui Land Company requests halt to stream restoration
West Maui Land Co. manages three of West Maui's water providers. As the fire was ravaging the island, the company said that firefighters had used what little water they had in their reservoirs and tanks, so they asked the CWRM to divert water from streams to enable them to "store as much water as possible for fire control."
Around 1 p.m. on Aug. 8, Tremble reached out to the state Commission on Water Resource Management, which oversees how owners of water sources such as wells can use the water in areas deemed water management areas.
West Maui is such an area.
Tremble voiced his worries about the fires and requested state approval to divert more water from nearby streams to company reservoirs. He would then offer the water to the Maui Fire Department to fight the fires….
Aside from the request for increased stream diversions, West Maui Land Co. is asking the CWRM to suspend and ultimately modify the Water Management Area Designation for West Maui. This designation adds a layer of permitting and allows the CWRM to revisit water allocations to ensure there is enough water in the streams for public trust uses before private commercial use.
Water policy consultant Jonathan Likeke Scheuer, co-author of the book “Water and Power in West Maui” said rolling back designation in West Maui would return us to a time when large landowners alone working with government staff behind closed doors made decisions about West Maui’s water future.
“In the close to 30 years that I've been working on water issues around Hawaiʻi, especially on Maui, I've never seen where a fundamental lack of water was a cause for not being able to build housing, not being able to have water for prevention of fires, not to be able to have water for streams,” Scheuer said.
The Department of Land and Natural Resources said it “is re-deploying” the state water resource administrator who was at the center of a delayed decision to divert water from Upcountry Maui land to help firefighters as the Aug. 8 wildfires began to take hold around Lahaina.
In a brief statement Wednesday night, DLNR officials said Kaleo Manuel, first deputy of the Commission on Water Resource Management, was being reassigned so that the commission and the department can “focus on the necessary work to assist the people of Maui recover from the devastation of wildfires.
“This deployment does not suggest that First Deputy Manuel did anything wrong. DLNR encourages the media and the public to avoid making judgments until all the facts are known,” the statement said.
So now I was thinking I really would like to hear from the fire fighters on the ground and not just the Fire Chief who was not in Maui that day.
The only interview I could find is this. It appears heavily edited and not many details but she did say she had no water when they needed it most.
She said 18 Maui fire fighters live on Lahaina but no sense of how many on duty in Lahaina on August 8. 17 lost their home due to fire, including her. Also she does not discuss the situation earlier in the day only when things were out of control in afternoon
Here is the Fire chief being interviewed. He was not in Lahaina on 8/8. Does not mention running out of water. Curious omission. Admits 2 fire engines lost, 1 damaged
A firefighter was seriously injured that day but this was not played up in any way by the government or media. This is very strange because they normally look to play up heroes (all fire fighters are IMO)
Beyond a brief mention in a Maui County news release on the Upcountry and Lahaina fires issued at 9:45 p.m. Aug. 8 that said a firefighter responding to the Lahaina wildfire “experienced smoke inhalation” and was in stable condition at Maui Memorial Medical Center, county and state officials have not provided details about the incident or an update on the firefighter’s condition, and have not responded to Honolulu Star-Advertiser requests for additional information.
At least three Lahaina residents told the Star-Advertiser that on their way out of town to escape the inferno they witnessed firefighters performing CPR on another firefighter on the side of the road. Other reports on social media describe seeing a firefighter being dragged by a truck and suffering severe injuries to his leg.
In an interview with KGW News in Portland, Ore., Caroline Reay and Gerry Williams, who were on Maui celebrating their anniversary, described their ordeal in trying to evacuate from the Pioneer Inn in Lahaina town and what they saw as they drove off.
“It was just insanity at one point,” Reay recalled. “On the other side of the roadway a fire vehicle was moving along and a young man, a firefighter, was being dragged along on the outside, and two blocks down they stopped and they were doing CPR on him. It was complete chaos.”
U.S. Fire Administrator Lori Moore-Merrell apparently was briefed on the incident by Maui officials and told MauiNow that firefighters were outpaced by the Lahaina fire and had to abandon their truck and evacuate in a different vehicle.
“So they all got into a vehicle. One of them — they couldn’t all fit, so one of them … was held onto and unfortunately partially drug. And so he is severely injured, but he is recovering well.”
Are the Fire Fighters being muzzled?
One firefighter described how his truck tapped into a hydrant to try and contain a blaze that had taken root in a cluster of homes, only to find water pressure so weak that the fire promptly jumped beyond their efforts to contain it. Another firefighter who arrived on scene after the fire was already raging said he encountered a scene of chaos and soon was told that there was no water to put the fires out. Crews were forced to focus on evacuations, he said, picking up people who were stranded and pointing others toward the fastest routes to safety.
These two firefighters declined to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the emergency effort.
With an estimated 60 to 70 firefighters on duty at any one time on Maui, according to the Hawaii Fire Fighters Association, the firefighting crews were stretched thin as they battled three different conflagrations on the island.
In the end, the fire stopped only when it ran out of fuel at the ocean. The extent of the damage is still coming into focus, but it is already huge: some 1,500 residential buildings destroyed, thousands of people displaced, nearly 100 found dead so far, and the heart of a community that has long been a gem of Hawaiian history is reduced to ashes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/us/lahaina-water-failure.html
Seems they need to be “authorized” to speak, but I suspect the big story here is that beyond not having water (there was a whole ocean of it), they simply didn’t have the equipment or men to fight the fire as most of them were elsewhere. It was a perfect opportunity for someone with the means to capitalize on a big fire (Disaster Capitalism) to act.
Land Grab
On Monday, Hawaiian governor Josh Green announced that his administration was considering acquiring properties in the seaside resort town of Lahaina that had been destroyed by the recent wildfires.
He vowed to prevent foreign buyers from swooping in to exploit the tragedy, suggesting the state was better suited to take control of the land.
"I'm already thinking of ways for the state to acquire that land so that we can put it into workforce housing, to put it back into families, or make it open spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to the people who were lost," Green said while standing amongst the rubble.
https://thepostmillennial.com/hawaii-governor-says-state-is-looking-to-acquire-land-that-was-destroyed-in-fires
For the next 60 days, the reconstruction of the historic Maui town, which was largely destroyed by wildfires last week, will be the sole focus of his previously issued emergency proclamation on housing. It is something he said his Building Beyond Barriers Working Group is already working on.
Notice Building Beyond Barriers = BBB= Build Back Better
He reiterated his view that Hawaii faces a true crisis with 14,000 residents fleeing every year because they can’t afford to live in the islands. Business as usual, he implied, is no longer acceptable.
“Number one, we need houses. Period,” he said. “And now we need more than ever houses on Maui and other places too. The world has changed. The world is heated. It is a drier planet. We have stronger storms. We had a hurricane hundreds of miles offshore spin 80-mph winds to our border, to our land, and spread sparks of fire all across Maui.”
Among other things, the Legislature and other agencies may be asked to make changes to water designations in West Maui. The governor also proposed a jobs training program for local residents similar to the Work Progress Administration that was set up by President Franklin Roosevelt to give people employment during the Great Depression.
Great news for property developers and water companies, especially companies that do both , like West Maui Land Company. Cui Bono
I am sure the development will be all Green.
But the very interesting thing is the Governor signed an Emergency Proclamation Relating to Housing, on July 17, 2023 which created the Building Beyond Barriers Working Group that is now working on the Lahaina Rebuild. It allows him to suspend Historical Preservation Laws
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https://governor.hawaii.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/2307072-1.pdf
I mean, you cant make this up.
Sadly for many of the Residents, they will likely be priced out. Not enough jobs or housing for years, so many will be forced to sell to the state or local developers and move. In a place where dinner for two at McDonalds costs $50, things will get more expensive
Although, perhaps Governor Green will arrange for enough affordable low income housing and new jobs, we will have to await and see.
In the meantime there is another problem, wild fires and house fires create all kinds of toxins. Lahaina is probably much worse than East Palestine. I am surprised nobody is talking about Dioxins
When fire consumes a community, it burns indiscriminately through products people need for everyday life — automobiles, home insulation, paint cans, plastics and pressure-treated wood. Those building materials contain lead, arsenic, asbestos and other dangerous chemicals that can go up in smoke and into lungs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/17/maui-fires-pollution-water-soil/
Dioxin
Post-structure fire and wildfire settings, especially those where plastics, synthetic materials, electronics, or household products made with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) have burned, extremely hazardous and carcinogenic chemicals are created that are typically overlooked or disregarded altogether. One chemical in particular, dioxin, some consider to be the second most toxic chemical known to man, second only to radioactive waste.
Not only is this substance extremely toxic to all life, and far more lethal than asbestos or lead, it is also known to the World Health Organization as a member of the so-called “Dirty Dozen” – a group of dangerous chemicals also referred to as persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
POPs are chemicals of global concern due to their potential for long-range transport, persistence in the environment and atmosphere, ability to bio-magnify and bioaccumulate in ecosystems, as well as their significant negative effects on human health and the environment. Bioaccumulation is the accumulation of chemicals in organisms from the surrounding environment through skin absorption (by contact with contaminated surfaces, clothing, and equipment), ingestion, and inhalation.
They should probably be doing (and maybe already are) all kinds of environmental testing (water, air, soil) and blood tests for the residents in shelters and Ground Zero workers. Hopefully front line workers were wearing respirators
In any event they are going to have to detoxify Lahaina before they rebuild unless they skip the environmental testing
End
Excellent investigative work. I was watching this video from Geoff Cygnus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMfVGh7ZEMY I suspect that the firefighters are being threatened into silence...but on whose order?
I live in Maui. Mahalo nui loa for your excellent and very accurate exposé.