Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by stickdog99 » Thu Aug 24, 2023 7:11 pm
by stickdog99 » Thu Aug 24, 2023 7:52 pm
Nate Baird and Courtney Stapleton recounted their experience to the outlet, saying they loaded the car up with their two sons, Baird’s mother and one dog to escape the flames. When they turned south to escape Lahaina, they were met with cones and were told to turn back around to Lahaina, which was already burning.
But instead of turning around, they swerved past the cones and escaped to a neighboring town.
Kim Cuevas-Reyes said she survived with her two sons by ignoring orders to turn right onto Front Street, which has now been devastated by the fires. Instead, she turned left and drove in the wrong lane to escape the town.
“The gridlock would have left us there when the firestorm came,” Cuevas-Reyes, 38, told the AP. “I would have had to tell my children to jump into the ocean as well and be boiled alive by the flames or we would have just died from smoke inhalation and roasted in the car.”
by stickdog99 » Thu Aug 24, 2023 8:17 pm
“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 appearances at press conferences since the disaster occurred.
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.
"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.
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)
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
s.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 ashe
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.
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.
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.
by Grizzly » Thu Aug 24, 2023 10:16 pm
by Joe Hillshoist » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:27 pm
by Joe Hillshoist » Mon Aug 28, 2023 9:37 pm
LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Shortly after the ignition of the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, a developer of land around a threatened Maui community urgently asked state officials for permission to divert water from streams to fight the growing inferno.
West Maui Land Company, Inc. said it eventually received approval from the Hawaii commission that oversees water management, but suggested the state body didn’t act quickly enough and first directed the company to talk with a downstream taro farmer who relies on stream water, according to letters by a company executive obtained by The Associated Press and other news outlets.
Community members, including Native Hawaiian farmers, say the water the developer wanted for its reservoirs would not have made a difference in the fires. The reservoirs don’t supply Maui County’s fire hydrants, and firefighting helicopters — which could have dipped into the reservoirs for water — were grounded by high winds.
The Aug. 8 fire that killed at least 115 people took place below West Maui Land Company’s developments and the Hawaiian communities that rely on the water. But the dispute over water access during the blaze has sparked new tension in a fight that dates to the mid-1800s, when unfair water distribution practices took root with colonization.
“This is a 2023 rendition of what’s been happening in Lahaina for centuries,” said Kapua’ala Sproat, director of the Native Hawaiian law center at the University of Hawaii.
Glenn Tremble, who wrote the letters, told the AP via text that the company didn’t share the letters with the media and didn’t want to distract from West Maui’s losses. AP obtained the correspondence from various people familiar with the dispute.
“All we have asked is for the ability to make water available for fire prevention and suppression, to help people while we recover and to rebuild what we have lost,” he wrote.
The complex push-pull over Maui stream diversions recalls other battles over water rights in drought-stricken Western states that have pitted Native American tribes against farmers and farmers against urban areas.
Native Hawaiians have long fought to protect what they consider a sacred resource. Stream diversions continued even after the plantations closed, and booming development contributed to West Maui’s arid conditions. The West Maui Land Company’s subdivision — including multimillion-dollar gated homes that use diverted water — was untouched by the Lahaina fires, noted Native Hawaiians who live off the streams and farm taro, a cultural staple.
“At one time, Lahaina was known to be very verdant and very lush,” said Blossom Feiteira, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and Lahaina native. Hawaiians revere water so much and its abundance was why Lahaina became the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom from 1820 to 1845, she said.
When sugar cane and pineapple fields from the plantation era shut down in the 1980s and 1990s, the water was redirected to gated communities with lush green lawns and swimming pools, she said. Overgrown brown brush and invasive grass cropped up around these developments.
“There has been resentment in the community about that kind of picture,” Feiteira said.
In one of the letters, West Maui Land Company said the state Commission on Water Resource Management should not prioritize “one individual’s farm” over fighting a wind-whipped fire.
“No one is happy there was water in the streams while our homes, our businesses, our lands, and our lives were reduced to ash,” the company said. The letter said the company requested “approval to divert more water from the streams so we could store as much water as possible for fire control” at 1 p.m. on the day of the fire, but that they were directed to first inquire with a downstream taro farmer.
At about 6 p.m., the commission approved the diversion of more water, the letter said.
West Maui Land’s suggestion that Kaleo Manuel, first deputy of the commission, delayed the release of stream water has struck a nerve among Native Hawaiians and others who say the company is making him a scapegoat and using the tragedy to take yet more water.
A Lahaina stream sustains Keʻeaumoku Kapu’s taro patches on his ancestral lands deep in Kauaula Valley in the mountains above Lahaina. He fled the town on the afternoon of the fire as flames approached and spent a night in his truck. The fire didn’t get close to his home and farm in the valley, but in 2018 area residents used water from the stream to fight a wildfire, he said.
He called West Maui Land’s characterization of the stream diversions “bogus” and disingenuous.
“They’ll do anything to get it,” Kapu said of the water.
The company is “trying to use this incredibly difficult time to get a legal and financial advantage, especially over their water resources, when that’s something they were not able to accomplish legally before the fire,” said Sproat, of the Native Hawaiian law center.
The letters caused such a commotion that the state Department of Land and Natural Resources re-assigned Manuel, drawing a lawsuit from West Maui residents decrying the move. The department said in a statement that Manuel’s reassignment didn’t suggest he did anything wrong, but would allow officials to focus on Maui.
Manuel couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Community groups urged supporters to go to Manuel’s Honolulu office last week to bestow lei upon him in gratitude for his efforts.
Conflicts over stream diversions are not just a West Maui issue. Soon after the fires started, the state attorney general’s office filed a petition with the state Supreme Court blaming an environmental court judge’s caps on East Maui stream diversions for a lack of water for firefighting.
The court didn’t immediately issue a ruling after hearing arguments Wednesday.
“This is what happens when there’s literally not enough water anymore,” said Kamanamaikalani Beamer, a former trustee of the Commission on Water Resource Management, calling streams “the veins that fill up our aquifers.”
“Water brings together like the multitude of interests — economic, cultural,” he said. “But it’s because no one can just create it out of nothing.”
by Joe Hillshoist » Mon Aug 28, 2023 10:26 pm
stickdog99 » 25 Aug 2023 10:17 wrote:https://pete843.substack.com/p/more-on-lahaina
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.
...
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 appearances at press conferences since the disaster occurred.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/was-m ... -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.
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.
...
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/ma ... 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
...
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)
...
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)
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,
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maui-wildf ... regret-it/
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/art ... 300089.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.
...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/h ... -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 trueWith 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.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wok ... -save-maui
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 historyIn 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 8,2023West 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."
https://www.newsweek.com/who-kaleo-manu ... re-1820405Around 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….
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/the-l ... r-on-maui/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.
https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/local ... ter-rightsThe 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.
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/08/ ... nistrator/
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.”
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/08/ ... -wildfire/
Are the Fire Fighters being muzzled?s.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 ashe
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/us/l ... ilure.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 GrabOn 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-go ... d-in-firesFor 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 BetterHe 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.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/hawai ... nts-first/
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:
https://governor.hawaii.gov/wp-content/ ... 7072-1.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.
...
by Grizzly » Wed Sep 13, 2023 12:36 am
by stickdog99 » Thu Sep 14, 2023 6:19 pm
But here's the thing - Front st is a road that traavels along the water front and is close to water. So in some ways its a safe place to send people, especially if you think the other roads may be unsafe.
by Joe Hillshoist » Thu Sep 14, 2023 9:32 pm
stickdog99 » 15 Sep 2023 08:19 wrote:But here's the thing - Front st is a road that traavels along the water front and is close to water. So in some ways its a safe place to send people, especially if you think the other roads may be unsafe.
But here's the thing. Youi know nothing about Lahaina or you never would have said that. What is motivating you to say things about this event like this?
by stickdog99 » Fri Sep 15, 2023 1:29 pm
Joe Hillshoist » 15 Sep 2023 01:32 wrote:stickdog99 » 15 Sep 2023 08:19 wrote:But here's the thing - Front st is a road that traavels along the water front and is close to water. So in some ways its a safe place to send people, especially if you think the other roads may be unsafe.
But here's the thing. Youi know nothing about Lahaina or you never would have said that. What is motivating you to say things about this event like this?
Because I looked at maps, google earth of the island, read about the wind conditions and the places fires were reported and thought about what I'd do in that position in terms of whats likely to be safe and what isn't, then thought about it from the pov of a cop not a fire fighter bearing in mind some of the video footage from the fire in town is full on and worse than any fire conditions I've seen or seen videoed in the past.
See the bolded bit ... why wouldn't I have said that if I knew anything about Lahaina?
by Joe Hillshoist » Fri Sep 15, 2023 11:28 pm
stickdog99 » 16 Sep 2023 03:29 wrote:Joe Hillshoist » 15 Sep 2023 01:32 wrote:stickdog99 » 15 Sep 2023 08:19 wrote:But here's the thing - Front st is a road that traavels along the water front and is close to water. So in some ways its a safe place to send people, especially if you think the other roads may be unsafe.
But here's the thing. Youi know nothing about Lahaina or you never would have said that. What is motivating you to say things about this event like this?
Because I looked at maps, google earth of the island, read about the wind conditions and the places fires were reported and thought about what I'd do in that position in terms of whats likely to be safe and what isn't, then thought about it from the pov of a cop not a fire fighter bearing in mind some of the video footage from the fire in town is full on and worse than any fire conditions I've seen or seen videoed in the past.
See the bolded bit ... why wouldn't I have said that if I knew anything about Lahaina?
Telling people to evacuate Lahaina using Front Street is like telling people to evacuate San Francisco by going to Pier 38 in Fisherman's Wharf. You literally could not choose a better road to trap people on. It's a fucking tourist trap.
by Grizzly » Sat Sep 16, 2023 1:32 am
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