The blazes consumed most of the historic town of Lahaina and are already the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.
LAHAINA, Hawaii — Hawaii’s governor warned that scores more people could be found dead following ferocious wildfires on Maui, as search and rescue crews scoured neighborhoods street by street and prepared to comb through buildings charred by flames that galloped a mile a minute.
As cell phone service has slowly been restored, Green had said that the number of people missing dropped to about 1,300 from over 2,000.“Right now, they’re going street by street, block by block between cars, and soon they’ll start to enter buildings,” Jeff Hickman, the director of public affairs for the Hawaii Department of Defense, said Monday on NBC’s “Today.
The cause of the wildfires is under investigation, and Green said authorities would also examine their response. One fire, for instance, was thought to be out but later flared again. Before the blaze engulfed Lahaina, Maui County officials also failed to activate sirens that would have warned the entire population and instead relied on social media posts.
The fires are Hawaii’s deadliest natural disaster in decades, surpassing a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people. They also surpassed the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California that left 85 dead and destroyed the town of Paradise. Green said 500 hotels rooms will be made available for locals who have been displaced. An additional 500 rooms will be set aside for workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some hotels will carry on with normal business to help preserve jobs and sustain the local economy, Green said.J.P. Mayoga, a cook at the Westin Maui in Kaanapali, is still making breakfast, lunch and dinner on a daily basis.
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