‘Worst Nightmare’: Maui Residents Caught in Wildfires Before Official Alerts

The hall of historic Waiola Church in Lahaina and nearby Lahaina Hongwanji Mission are engulfed in flames along Wainee Street in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Aug. 8, 2023. Matthew Thayer/The Maui News via AP

Several residents in Maui received no warning prior to the wildfires that ravaged their neighborhoods and killed dozens of people.

The destructive wildfires have, thus far, killed at least 55 people on the island of Maui, injuring dozens more. Officials have warned that the death toll could rise. Thousands of people have been displaced and at least 1,700 structures were razed by flames in the town of Lahaina. With power and cell service down in western Maui, the exact number of how many people died or survived has been difficult to gauge.

Amid the devastation, locals are complaining that they had little to no warning about the danger they were to face. Many of them never even heard any warning sirens nor realized they were in danger when they saw the approaching flames.

Speaking to The New York Times, Claire Kent, who works in Lahaina taking tourists out on a boat off the coast, said that she began to panic when she saw a cloud of black smoke and heard an explosion. A neighbor warned her to quickly run away.

As she and her friends drove out of the town, Ms. Kent saw people running away, with some holding their children. Even then, she didn’t receive any official notification for evacuation. “There weren’t police officers with megaphones telling people you need to evacuate.”

While some residents received emergency evacuation alerts, others did not.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, May Wedelin-Lee, a 20-year resident of Maui, recounted how she was at home when she saw the wildfires speeding up toward the community.

“It didn’t take long: From when the wind shifted until when we were like, ‘We need to go,’ it was maybe five, 10 minutes,” she said. As Ms. Wedelin-Lee quickly got into her truck and raced away, she saw chaos erupt all around her.

“It was just panic. People were crying on the side of the road and begging. People jumped in each other’s [cars], people had bicycles, people ran, people had skateboards, people had cats under their arms … just sprinting down the street.”

“The apocalypse was happening. It was the worst nightmare. Imagine the worst you can picture, and it was 1,000 times worse than that.”

Over 11,000 households were out of power in Hawaii as of 09:00 a.m. ET, according to poweroutage.us. Much of Lahaina, a historic town in western Maui that was home to around 12,000 people, has been wiped out. Emergency shelters and hospitals are being overwhelmed. Thousands have been airlifted out of Maui.

The exact cause of what triggered the wildfires is yet to be determined. Experts largely put the blame on factors like dry vegetation, low humidity, and high winds that helped fan the flames.

Havoc in Hawaii

Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens were triggered before devastating fires spread death and destruction.

Hawaii boasts what the state describes as the largest integrated outdoor all-hazard public safety warning system in the world, with about 400 sirens positioned across the island chain to alert people to various natural disasters and other threats.

Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Adam Weintraub said that the department’s records don’t show that Maui’s warning sirens were triggered on Tuesday when the Lahaina fire began. Instead, the county used emergency alerts sent to mobile phones, televisions, and radio stations, Mr. Weintraub said.

It’s not clear if those alerts were sent before widespread power and cellular outages cut off most communication to Lahaina. Across the island, 911 landline and cellular service have failed at times.

Maui Fire Department Chief Brad Ventura said the fire moved so quickly from brush to neighborhoods that it was impossible to get messages to the emergency management agencies responsible for alerts.

“What we experienced was such a fast-moving fire through the ... initial neighborhood that caught fire they were basically self-evacuating with fairly little notice,” Mr. Ventura said.

Marlon Vasquez, a 31-year-old cook from Guatemala who came to the United States in January 2022, said that when he heard fire alarms, it was already too late to flee in his car.

“I opened the door, and the fire was almost on top of us,” he said from an evacuation center at a gymnasium. “We ran and ran. We ran almost the whole night and into the next day, because the fire didn’t stop.”

Mr. Vasquez and his brother Mr. Eduardo escaped via roads that were clogged with vehicles full of people. The smoke was so toxic that he vomited. He said he’s not sure his roommates and neighbors made it to safety.

Chelsey Vierra doesn’t know if her great-grandmother, Louise Abihai, managed to escape her senior living facility, which witnesses saw erupt in flames.

“She doesn’t have a phone. She’s 97 years old,” Ms. Vierra said. “She can walk. She is strong.”

Relatives are monitoring shelter lists and calling the hospital. “We got to find our loved one, but there’s no communication here,” said Ms. Vierra, who fled the flames. “We don’t know who to ask about where she went.”

Tourists were advised to stay away from Maui, and tens of thousands of people have crowded airports to leave the island.

The blaze is the deadliest U.S. wildfire since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and laid waste to the town of Paradise.

The Associated Press contributed to the report.