I think I have posted in the past that we have a home on Maui, and we are legal residents of Hawaii. Thankfully, we live on the south side of the island, and were not impacted by the fire.
Before I give you my story, I am posting below the address of where you can donate to the 17 Maui Firemen, the three life guards and the one EMT who lost their homes in this tragic fire. 100 percent of your donation will go to those 21 families. There is no overhead.
Maui Fire Store
147 Kilioopu Street
Wailuku, HI 96793
One of our friends' son, is a fire fighter and is/was based in Lahaina. (The station is now gone.) I will call him "Jim," but that's not his real name. I get the sense that the County is telling the firemen to zip it, and I don't want to get anyone in trouble. I got a lot of the information that I will share from Jim's father, and the rest from articles in the WSJ plus spending hours on YouTube watching the local news and podcasts.
Jim came on duty at 7 AM the day the fire started. At 9:02 AM, they declared the initial grass fire above Lahaina under control. Jim and four other fire fighters were left in Lahaina, while the remainder of the crew were dispatched up country to fight the fire in Kula. I think Maui employees about 75 firemen.
Jim and his cohorts were not dressed out to fight a major conflagration, but to fight a grass fire, like this. Thus, they were not donning proper respirators, the more robust PPE, etc. I don't want to go into the details here, because it's not public knowledge, but those five had three successive emergencies later that morning that did not allow them to store the hoses properly, nor refill the truck with water. They just jammed the hoses into the cab of the truck. Those emergencies were not related to the fire.
That afternoon, like it often does on Maui, the winds came up and reignited the fires above Lahaina. The five fire fighters hooked up the hoses to fight the fire and found that they had virtually no water.
Let me digress here for a moment and provide some background. A few years ago, the County DLNR (Department of Land and Natural Resources) wanted to construct a water tank for fire water storage above Lahaina. The Sierra Club found a liberal judge, sued and prevented the construction of that fire water storage tank. A water storage tank, properly elevated, would have provided additional water to fight the fires and would have provided the necessary head by virtue of gravity. The Sierra Club was concerned about the "diversion" of the water.
The Iao Valley is on the other side of the island from Lahaina and is one of the wettest places on Planet Earth. If you have flown into Maui, the mountains were on your left as you touched down. It catches all the moisture coming in from the ocean on the north side of the island. That's why Lahaina is so dry. It has nothing to do with Global Warming or whatever the buzz word is today. Lahaina is on the dry side of the island. In my estimation, the Sierra Club has blood on its hands, lots of blood, and should be sued just like they're going to sue the power company.
A couple of other facts. As I have determined, Maui only had electric driven pumps to charge the water main and it was a combined potable water/fire water main at that. So, when they lost power due to the downed power lines combined with the burning homes bleeding pressure, there was virtually no water. A combined water main is poor engineering practice in my judgement. Some of you who are city planners or have more knowledge may have something to say about that.
Back to the fire. The fires started in a working class neighborhood, which were mostly of wood construction. The fire captain quickly determined that they could not put out any fires. Thus, the five dedicated their efforts to rescue as many people as possible. They quickly lost their fire truck in the fire, so they eventually wound up commandeering the three life guard trucks, as well as a police SUV to rescue one of the firemen who was badly burned. Those five fire fighters were true heroes. They went into the fires time and again and loaded as many people as possible and took them to safety. Many of the rescued had broken limbs or were burned, some badly.
You can find a broadcast on YouTube of an interview of a lady fire fighter. She remarked about going past her home several times to see that it was still standing. She performed her duty, knowing that her home would most likely be destroyed. And, it eventually burned to the ground. Jim was her driver. During the rescue phase this lady fire fighter worked wonders calming hysterical survivors whom they loaded into the bed of the life guard trucks.
Jim's father, my friend, and his wife, did not hear from their son for more than 24 hours. They did not know if he was dead or alive. The father even called the local hospital to see if Jim had been brought in. Jim lost his cell phone when his fire truck burned, not that there was any cell service to begin with.
The reason for this long post is to ask AggieYell that if you're going to contribute to the cause, please consider the one I noted above.
And one last item to help. If you're planning a vacation, please consider Maui - on the south side. I am not sure about Ka'anapali. The authorities are still being very quiet about Ka'anapali and the communities to the west. Please do not listen to those ass hats who tell you that Maui is shut down. Do not let them shame you.
I think something like 20,000 people were directly impacted by the fires. Maui has a population of about 165,000. The residents who were not directly impacted need to work to support their families. Tourism is the only industry on Maui. This is Economics 101. Just come to Maui with your family and spend money as you normally would. That would be a big help in starting the healing process. The residents are very sad and very numb, about this tragedy that should not have happened. And, now they are frightened about their financial security.
I have a whole lot more information, but I want to stop here. Plus, I want a post that Mark would not delete, because some of this is political. I have a lot of anger against the authorities, as do many of the Maui residents.
I will try to answer any questions you might have.
Before I give you my story, I am posting below the address of where you can donate to the 17 Maui Firemen, the three life guards and the one EMT who lost their homes in this tragic fire. 100 percent of your donation will go to those 21 families. There is no overhead.
Maui Fire Store
147 Kilioopu Street
Wailuku, HI 96793
One of our friends' son, is a fire fighter and is/was based in Lahaina. (The station is now gone.) I will call him "Jim," but that's not his real name. I get the sense that the County is telling the firemen to zip it, and I don't want to get anyone in trouble. I got a lot of the information that I will share from Jim's father, and the rest from articles in the WSJ plus spending hours on YouTube watching the local news and podcasts.
Jim came on duty at 7 AM the day the fire started. At 9:02 AM, they declared the initial grass fire above Lahaina under control. Jim and four other fire fighters were left in Lahaina, while the remainder of the crew were dispatched up country to fight the fire in Kula. I think Maui employees about 75 firemen.
Jim and his cohorts were not dressed out to fight a major conflagration, but to fight a grass fire, like this. Thus, they were not donning proper respirators, the more robust PPE, etc. I don't want to go into the details here, because it's not public knowledge, but those five had three successive emergencies later that morning that did not allow them to store the hoses properly, nor refill the truck with water. They just jammed the hoses into the cab of the truck. Those emergencies were not related to the fire.
That afternoon, like it often does on Maui, the winds came up and reignited the fires above Lahaina. The five fire fighters hooked up the hoses to fight the fire and found that they had virtually no water.
Let me digress here for a moment and provide some background. A few years ago, the County DLNR (Department of Land and Natural Resources) wanted to construct a water tank for fire water storage above Lahaina. The Sierra Club found a liberal judge, sued and prevented the construction of that fire water storage tank. A water storage tank, properly elevated, would have provided additional water to fight the fires and would have provided the necessary head by virtue of gravity. The Sierra Club was concerned about the "diversion" of the water.
The Iao Valley is on the other side of the island from Lahaina and is one of the wettest places on Planet Earth. If you have flown into Maui, the mountains were on your left as you touched down. It catches all the moisture coming in from the ocean on the north side of the island. That's why Lahaina is so dry. It has nothing to do with Global Warming or whatever the buzz word is today. Lahaina is on the dry side of the island. In my estimation, the Sierra Club has blood on its hands, lots of blood, and should be sued just like they're going to sue the power company.
A couple of other facts. As I have determined, Maui only had electric driven pumps to charge the water main and it was a combined potable water/fire water main at that. So, when they lost power due to the downed power lines combined with the burning homes bleeding pressure, there was virtually no water. A combined water main is poor engineering practice in my judgement. Some of you who are city planners or have more knowledge may have something to say about that.
Back to the fire. The fires started in a working class neighborhood, which were mostly of wood construction. The fire captain quickly determined that they could not put out any fires. Thus, the five dedicated their efforts to rescue as many people as possible. They quickly lost their fire truck in the fire, so they eventually wound up commandeering the three life guard trucks, as well as a police SUV to rescue one of the firemen who was badly burned. Those five fire fighters were true heroes. They went into the fires time and again and loaded as many people as possible and took them to safety. Many of the rescued had broken limbs or were burned, some badly.
You can find a broadcast on YouTube of an interview of a lady fire fighter. She remarked about going past her home several times to see that it was still standing. She performed her duty, knowing that her home would most likely be destroyed. And, it eventually burned to the ground. Jim was her driver. During the rescue phase this lady fire fighter worked wonders calming hysterical survivors whom they loaded into the bed of the life guard trucks.
Jim's father, my friend, and his wife, did not hear from their son for more than 24 hours. They did not know if he was dead or alive. The father even called the local hospital to see if Jim had been brought in. Jim lost his cell phone when his fire truck burned, not that there was any cell service to begin with.
The reason for this long post is to ask AggieYell that if you're going to contribute to the cause, please consider the one I noted above.
And one last item to help. If you're planning a vacation, please consider Maui - on the south side. I am not sure about Ka'anapali. The authorities are still being very quiet about Ka'anapali and the communities to the west. Please do not listen to those ass hats who tell you that Maui is shut down. Do not let them shame you.
I think something like 20,000 people were directly impacted by the fires. Maui has a population of about 165,000. The residents who were not directly impacted need to work to support their families. Tourism is the only industry on Maui. This is Economics 101. Just come to Maui with your family and spend money as you normally would. That would be a big help in starting the healing process. The residents are very sad and very numb, about this tragedy that should not have happened. And, now they are frightened about their financial security.
I have a whole lot more information, but I want to stop here. Plus, I want a post that Mark would not delete, because some of this is political. I have a lot of anger against the authorities, as do many of the Maui residents.
I will try to answer any questions you might have.
