It seems as if everything that could go wrong happened during the Maui wildfires. The island’s disaster relief chief never triggered the alarm system. He bluntly said it wouldn’t have saved the people in the mountainside region when pressed why it was never activated. Suppose you thought Joe Biden’s bedside manner regarding the rising death toll from this disaster was cold-hearted. Maui Emergency Management Agency Administrator Herman Andaya might have made a worse comment.
Maui Emergency Management Agency Administrator Herman Andaya today defended the decision not to activate emergency sirens warning #Maui residents and visitors about the wildfires. Here's a clip from the press conference.
— Star-Advertiser (@StarAdvertiser) August 17, 2023
Details: https://t.co/0m3zSd9QmD #HInews #StarAdvertiser pic.twitter.com/lSe3iM6flj
Hawaii has sustained $6 billion in damages so far from this brushfire, which has killed over 100 people, with at least another 1,000 still missing. It’s one of the deadliest wildfires in American history.
On top of the disaster chief being grossly unqualified, Hawaiian Electric supposedly knew that cutting off power to lines subjected to strong winds was an effective protocol for mitigating wildfires. The island got hammered by such gusts due to a hurricane off the coast. This policy, however, was never made official, and this fire likely began due to damaged power wires. To make matters worse for the state’s main electrical company, their utility trucks reportedly blocked escape routes for those fleeing the flames (via NBC News):
Three survivors of the deadly wildfires that ravaged Maui said Wednesday that when the inferno erupted, the main escape route out of town was partly blocked by Hawaiian Electric trucks clearing downed lines and replacing busted power poles.
The result was "epic bumper-to-bumper traffic while we were trying to escape,” said resident Cole Millington, 26. “There were no police officers in sight. What there was were Hawaiian Electric trucks coming in with new telephone poles.
“Instead of waiting for everybody to get out, they were blocking the only way out with their big trucks.”
Millington and one of his roommates, Caitlin Carroll, said that when they started to flee Lahaina around 4 p.m. on Aug. 8, Hawaiian Electric workers were already clearing downed power lines and electrical wires from the Honoapiilani Highway.
“I understand that,” Millington said. “You don’t want to be driving over live wires. But they were also starting to replace the poles while we were all trying to get out. We were like, get the f--- off the road and let us get by.”
[…]
Lahaina resident Amanda Cassidy, 33, said she and her boyfriend encountered a similar situation as they tried to escape their neighborhood using Lahainaluna Road while flames devoured her rental home.
[…]
“When you have thousands of people in vehicles trying to flee, you have to figure something else out,” Cassidy said of the utility. “That is our lifeline, our escape route, and you cut us off from it? There was no other way out.”
Cassidy, who survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said her Lahaina home was surrounded by above-ground power lines that should have been secured and dry vegetation that should have been cut before last week’s blazes.
“It’s so, so sad and disappointing. This could have been prevented years ago,” she said.
Cassidy estimated she was 20 minutes in front of people who were forced to abandon their vehicles and jump into the ocean to escape the flames.
The crisis management response to this disaster seemed as deadly as the fire. Also, what is it with environmentalists and their reluctance to engage in controlled burns to curb the damage inflicted by wildfires? It’s almost as if they want to create a scenario where deaths can be maximized to push a political agenda. Oh wait—that’s already what they’re doing. That objective and managerial incompetence will provide a lengthy butcher’s bill while the Left can peddle global warming soundbites until the cows come home.
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