Table Of Content
- days that rocked USC: How a derailed commencement brought ‘complete disaster’
- Video of dinner in 2012 including wine room
- Lahaina residents begin returning to sites of homes destroyed by deadly wildfire
- Some Lahaina fire survivors say flames reached them before evacuation orders.
- More From the Los Angeles Times
For those stuck in place, health experts recommend wearing an N 95 mask, staying inside a home with sealed windows and using an air conditioning system with a Merv 13 filter, if possible. Anyone who shows signs of respiratory distress should get help from a health care provider immediately. The fires have been largely contained, officials said, but smoke and ash are still billowing upward in places. In 2012, the Oracle executive Larry Ellison bought 98 percent of Lanai, a Maui County island where Bill and Melinda Gates were married in 1994. “To locals, it’s a very touristy spot, but we embraced it,” said Jared Hedani, 37, a grant specialist of Japanese-Filipino ancestry and who has lived on Maui nearly his whole life.
days that rocked USC: How a derailed commencement brought ‘complete disaster’
Spiritual care teams, as well as counselors and other mental health specialists, are setting up around the island, officials said. “We lost neighbors in this, and neighbors lost everything,” Atwater Millikin told The Times. A trip to Maui isn’t complete without ducking underwater to spy on clouds of striped manini fish, eagle rays and turtles. While most snorkel tours start at Mā‘alaea Harbor, Blue Water Rafting boards at the Kihei boat ramp — offering easier access and one of the only tours of Kanaio Coast’s hidden coves and sea caves ($179, four hours). Climb into the rigid-hulled raft beside two dozen other passengers (fewer than the big tour boats) and watch for dolphins.
Video of dinner in 2012 including wine room
Some have also speculated the home was saved by sprinklers, Atwater Millikin said. It did have a sprinkler system, but so did many of the other homes in the area that burned, she said. In any event, by the time the fire reached the home, the electricity was out and the system wasn’t working, she said. The home may also have benefited from the fact that it was not that close to neighboring properties, she said, pointing out that it was bordered on three sides by the ocean, a road and a park-like empty lot, respectively. “If shrubs and bushes, especially flammable ones, are right up next to the house and embers catch them on fire, the heat can burst the window and it goes right into the home from there,” she said.
Lahaina residents begin returning to sites of homes destroyed by deadly wildfire
Southwest plans to fly its typical daily schedule on Thursday, of roughly 90 flights for Hawaii, many of which run between the islands, according to a spokesperson, with additional flights to provide extra seats for travelers leaving Maui. “This is going to be a long period of recovery, but we will rebuild,” said Senator Brian Schatz. This news conference has the tone of leaders of a community settling in for recovery from a transformative disaster that will reverberate for decades. The Maui mayor, Richard T. Bissen Jr., said “mandatory evacuations did take place on the west side for those affected areas,” but many residents whose homes were consumed by fire told The New York Times that they never got any evacuation alerts.
He said the fire quickly closed in on them as they drove through thick black smoke — and finally to safety. The death toll from the fires that overtook Maui was already growing significantly on Thursday as questions mounted over whether officials had acted with enough urgency to evacuate the tourist haven of Lahaina, where many people described harrowing escapes. The trade winds blowing across Hawaii on Friday were much weaker than they had been over the previous several days, the National Weather Service said in a forecast. The agency reported moderate to locally breezy winds on Friday afternoon in areas that tend to be windy, along with mostly dry conditions across the state. A number of people have reported not receiving timely evacuation orders, though officials have said that they issued appropriate orders. Courtney Lazo, a real estate agent who is part of Lahaina Strong, the group occupying Kaanapali Beach, said tourists can stay in her hometown now but many locals can’t.
Some Lahaina fire survivors say flames reached them before evacuation orders.
Ms. Wong is now working out of the University of Hawaii’s Maui campus with World Central Kitchen, the global nonprofit organization founded by the chef José Andrés, as well as local business owners to prepare meals for evacuees. When she spoke to some of her employees, they conveyed to her just how fast — and devastating — the fires had been. The Pioneer Inn — which is close to Lahaina’s famed banyan tree — has been leveled, along with everything else, she said. Robbie Wares, 64, has lived for decades in a Lahaina neighborhood known as Kiawe Camp, near a Safeway grocery store. Jasmine Joao, a paralegal at an estate planning law firm in Maui, said in a telephone interview that the fires could disproportionately affect Native Hawaiian families in terms of their ability to recoup losses on their homes. Some of these “legacy” houses have had as many as 12 people bunking together in two or three bedrooms.
At a news conference on Thursday night, the fire chief, Bradford Ventura, said the blaze had moved so quickly that it was “nearly impossible” for emergency management officials to send out evacuation orders in time. One housing advocate argues that just because a community allowed vacation rentals decades ago doesn’t mean it still needs to now. Representatives for Ms. Winfrey, who has lived in Maui part-time for more than 15 years, did not respond to a request for comment. According to Architectural Digest, her portfolio of roughly 1,000 acres on the island includes 870 acres in Kula, an area southeast of Lahaina where firefighting efforts were underway on Thursday. During brush fires in 2019, she gave Maui County access to a private road on the property to assist with evacuations. President Biden on Thursday issued a major disaster declaration for the state of Hawaii and approved federal aid funding to support people in Maui County, which encompasses the island of Maui and several others.
Hawaii WildfiresDestruction on Maui Looks Like ‘a Bomb Went Off,’ Governor Says
He did not respond to a request for comment on the status of his home, which is also in West Maui. Longtime residents, he said, have had to endure the effects of both displacement and climate change. For some Kānaka Maoli, as many Native Hawaiians call themselves, Lahaina was particularly notable as the place where Kamehameha the Great, the monarch who united all the Hawaiian islands, established his kingdom’s seat at the dawn of the 19th century. For those who planned to visit a property owned by a large hotel chain, the recommendation is to call the company’s corporate help line. Travelers with bookings at Hilton properties on Maui through Aug. 15 are encouraged to contact the company by calling HILTONS. The company is also waiving any cancellation penalties through Aug. 14 for guests with Maui plans.
On The Menu at The Plantation House Restaurant - Maui Now
On The Menu at The Plantation House Restaurant.
Posted: Tue, 07 May 2019 07:00:00 GMT [source]
NYC firefighter, 36, dies of heart attack after being fired to pay for migrants -- leaving family with nothing
A large percentage of the housing stock is also used for vacation rentals, further winnowing supply. The Lahaina blaze, which so far has killed 53 people and destroyed hundreds of buildings, follows a tumultuous time in Maui’s economy. Another resident, Ernesto Perez, 42, said that with a serious brush fire reported, he had kept an ear out on Tuesday in case the island’s emergency sirens blared. They never did, but before he knew it, a powerful gust of wind shrouded his apartment building with thick smoke around 5 p.m. They tried to drive south, but the road was gridlocked; five feet away a bush was burning; people holding children were escaping on foot; cars were disappearing into the smoke, Ms. Kent said. State Rep. Luke Evslin, the Housing Committee chair, said Maui and Kauai counties have suffered net losses of residential housing in recent years thanks to a paucity of new construction and the conversion of so many homes to short-term rentals.
Kiha Kaina, 46, a Native Hawaiian tattoo artist who grew up in Lahaina, was one of the few people allowed into town to drop off water and supplies for residents stranded there. Airbnb is offering travelers in parts of Maui a flexible cancellation option through its “extenuating circumstances policy,” which could result in a full refund on eligible stays. But getting answers about your lodging could take some time, as disruptions to cell service and power outages across swaths of Maui have affected hotel operations. United has canceled reservations on flights to Maui, to use planes to return travelers to the continental United States. The airline also waived change fees and offered refunds to customers with plans to fly to, from or through Maui.
The morning light often reveals the hidden interior of ‘Īao Valley, your next destination. Hawaiian Airlines is asking travelers to hold off on contacting its call center with less urgent questions as it tries to address customers immediately affected by the wildfires. The carrier is offering refunds and rescheduling at no extra cost for customers with flights to Maui’s Kahului Airport through Aug. 31. Other airlines have also implemented flexible cancellation policies and exemptions because of the wildfires, including Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada. The wildfires that leveled the town of Lahaina on Maui wiped out shops, restaurants and a hotel built more than century ago, burning across some of the most spectacular and wealthiest enclaves of the state. High-profile billionaires including Oprah Winfrey, Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos all have homes on Maui.
The store’s 46-acre farm supplies a cornucopia of tropical fruits and vegetables; its shelves teem with jars of pickled, powdered, and freeze-dried treats and tonics. While the house had sprinklers, so did most of the neighbors’ properties, and the system wasn’t working when needed because the power was out, Atwater Millikin said. Fire crews battled multiple fires in the popular tourist destination of West Maui and an inland mountainous region. Firefighters struggled to reach some areas that were cut off by downed trees and power lines. She was told that during the fire, “there were pieces of wood — 6, 12 inches long — that were on fire and just almost floating through the air with the wind and everything,” she told the LA Times.
In 2011, Thiel, the founder of Pay Pal, paid $27 million for a home in Makena, on the southwest coast of Maui, which The Wall Street Journal reported was then the most expensive purchase of a single-family home in the county. One of the buildings destroyed in Lahaina was the Pioneer Inn, built in 1901 and operated as a 34-room hotel by Best Western in front of Banyan Tree Park, home to a famous 150-year-old banyan tree. Several Hyatt properties in Maui have initiated emergency procedures, including evacuating the Lahaina Shores Beach Resort and Puunoa Beach Estates. The Hyatt Regency Maui and Kaanapali Ali have announced shelter-in-place measures, and have paused guest check-ins until Sunday. Travelers who booked reservations in the coming days with Hyatt are recommended to contact the company’s Global Care Center, and those who used third-party travel agents should contact their booking provider. But Oahu, home to the state capital, Honolulu, is mobilizing to support evacuees as airports become overrun.
