Deadly Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Wildfires

"They were moving fast. The winds were vicious and kept changing. He [Charles] said they were inside a dark smoke [that] felt like a tornado and they could not see nothing,"

"They kept calling each other’s name."
"He was screaming ‘run, run, run, Carole run.’ He eventually could not hear her anymore."

Gardner Hartley, Facebook post

 

"Indo-Pacom is on a hair trigger to be able to support as necessary. Everyone fully understands the pain that people are experiencing right now."

"We want to do everything we can help. But we also don’t want to contribute to the problem by sending unnecessary capabilities that then will hinder any type of emergency response."

Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder

 

"The remains we're finding is through a fire that melted metal... When we pick up the remains ... they fall apart."  

"[Cadaver dogs still had a vast area to search for what could still be hundreds of people who are unaccounted for]."

"We're going as fast as we can. But just so you know, 3% — that's what's been searched with the dogs."

Maui Police Chief John Pelletier

 

"The mountain behind us caught on fire and nobody told us jack."

"You know when we found that there was a fire? When it was across the street from us."

Vilma Reed, 63, Maui resident

 

"I will tell you this, as a physician, it is a harrowing sight in Maui."

"When those providers, the police and this division, do come across scenes in houses or businesses it is very difficult for them because they know, ultimately, they will be sharing with our people that there have been more fatalities."

"I do expect the numbers to rise." 

Governor Josh Green

A group of volunteers who sailed from Maalaea Bay, Maui, form an assembly line on Kaanapali Beach on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, to unload donations from a boat. Maui residents have come together to donate water, food and other essential supplies to people on the western side of the island after a deadly fire destroyed hundreds of homes and left scores of people homeless. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

One of the most popular tourism resorts in the United States, Hawaii is undergoing a horrific wildfire emergency. Wildfires on Maui have killed 96 people so far and more lethal casualties are expected before this dreadful natural disaster is over. To the present, 2,700 structures have been destroyed by the wildfires that moved at astonishing speed to demolish everything in their path. Countless people have been left homeless, leaving social assistance authorities with a huge task of providing immediate relief to grief-stricken people.

The historic town of Maui is no more, completely destroyed. Disaster relief springs into action. And the hope is that the relief will be more effective than the largest integrated outdoor all-hazard public safety warning system in the world, that Hawaii has been so proud of. There are about 400 sirens positioned across the island chain; their purpose, to alert people to natural disasters and any other threats that could conceivably arise. What could go wrong?

Survivors reveal there was no sound of sirens, nor did they receive any kind of warning, giving them time to prepare. Hawaii's emergency management records indicate no warning sirens had sounded before people were forced to run for their lives. People realized the extreme danger they suddenly faced only when they actually saw flames or heard the explosions that erupted nearby in the state's deadliest natural disaster since 61 people died in a 1960 tsunami.

That territory-wide emergency system was developed as a result of a 1946 tsunami that marked the death of over 150 people on the Big Island. The system sirens are regularly sounded to test their readiness. And when they should have been sounded it seems that no one in authority actually thought to use them from a real emergency.

 

Officials had sent out alerts to mobile phones, through television and radio stations -- the fly in that ointment was predictably, wide-spread power and cellular outages would have had the expected result of limiting that outreach.

The death toll, warns Governor Josh Green, is expected to rise, with search and rescue operations continuing and cadaver-sniffing dogs brought in to help in the search for people's remains resulting from the inferno that overtook them. 70-year-old retired mail carrier Thomas Leonard from Lahaina wasn't aware of the fire and then he smelled smoke. The town was given no real-time information of the danger they were facing.

When he attmpted to leave in his Jeep he was forced to abandon it and run for the shore as cars nearby began exploding. There, he hid for hours behind a seawall while wind blew hot ash and cinders around him. Eventually firefighters arrived, escorting Leonard and other survivors to safety through the flames. 

 

A dry summer and ferocious winds from a passing hurricane fuelled at least three wildfires that erupted this week on Maui. As the most serious of the wildfires raced through parched brush, Lahaina was left a grid of grey, ashen rubble with skeletal remains of buildings under blaze-pancaked roofs. Harbour boats scorched, the stench of burning lingers on the air from torched palm trees.

Destroyed homes and cars Sunday, August 13, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. Rick Bowmer/AP

"The price tag is astronomical in the context of Maui's size, as annual output is about $10 billion."

"With the median single-family house price in Maui just above $1 million, the effect on the housing stock alone pulls the estimate into the billions. Combine this with the loss of a couple of hotels and numerous retail shops, most of which are more highly valued than the typical home on the island, and the number climbs considerably."

"Many visitors to Hawaii are known to travel to more than one island, which means that the cancellation of entire itineraries will have ripple effects beyond Maui. Some would-be travelers could also paint all of the Hawaiian Islands with the same broad brush and shy away from visiting, especially after volcanic eruptions on the Big Island in recent years."

Adam Kamins and Katie Nied, Moody's Analytics economists

A firefighting helicopter makes a water drop as a Maui County firefighter extinguishes a fire near homes during the upcountry Maui wildfires in Kula, Hawaii on August 13, 2023.  PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP via Getty Images