Survivors of the wildfire that decimated the island of Maui have revealed that the only paved exit out of the town of Lahaina was barricaded by authorities as residents tried to escape. According to a shocking report from the Associated Press, work crews actively turned fleeing vehicles back towards the oncoming flames, leading to dozens of deaths—and only those who disobeyed survived.
The deadly blaze first broke out earlier this month when weather systems from a nearby hurricane combined with dry inland conditions to create the perfect circumstances for a brush fire. Preexisting issues with the power infrastructure on the island of Maui—which Hawaiian Electric knew about but failed to address for years—resulted in downed powerlines and showers of sparks, which grew into uncontrollable fires. With 115 confirmed deaths and an estimated 1,000 people still missing, this has become one of the deadliest wildfires in American history.
In the wake of the fire, the public has gradually begun to see the extent to which bureaucratic incompetence and system failure were involved in this tragedy. Beyond Hawaiian Electric’s failure to repair the known issues in favor of funding green energy projects, the finger of blame has also been pointed at Maui’s emergency manager. As Valuetainment previously reported, Emergency Management Agency Chief Herman Andaya resigned last week after failing to activate the outdoor warning sirens that might have alerted Lahaina residents to the fire. Andaya argued that the system, designed to warn of tsunamis, would not have helped in the case of a fire, but other county officials contradicted this assessment.
Additional blame has been attributed to the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management. Prior to the disaster, the department was led by a “water equity advocate” who refused to authorize additional water to fight the fire based on the resource’s “revered” status in native Hawaiian tradition.
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However, in perhaps the most shocking report to date, witnesses who survived the devastation in Lahaina say they were hindered from escaping when officials closed the Lahaina Bypass Road south of town, cutting off the only paved access to the Honoapiilani Highway. As the flames closed in on the town, the stream of fleeing cars was brought to a standstill by work crews repairing downed power poles along the road.
To escape the gridlock, some residents chose to disobey the road closure and drove around the cones and work vehicles—and that likely saved their lives. According to the Associated Press, “one family swerved around the barricade and was safe in a nearby town 48 minutes later, another drove their 4-wheel-drive car down a dirt road to escape. One man took a dirt road uphill, climbing above the fire and watching as Lahaina burned.”
But dozens of others who remained in their vehicles—or worse yet, were directed back towards the town by officials on the scene—soon found themselves completely trapped when the fire closed in from three sides. Many died right there in their cars, while others attempted to flee on foot, their abandoned cars making the traffic jam even worse.
“The gridlock would have left us there when the firestorm came,” said Kim Cuevas-Reyes, a mother of two who avoided the closure by driving down the wrong side of the road. “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.”
The road did not reopen until 5:20 pm, nearly two hours after residents first began fleeing. “It made no sense what they were doing,” Cole Millington, a resident, said, according to NBC News. “They could see the sky was black. They could see the city was on fire. They could see the wind was still whipping everything around. But they were already starting to plant new power poles.”
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said that police did not prevent residents from fleeing, but witness reports conflict regarding officer involvement in the road closures.
In total, 2,170 acres of land, including most of Lahaina itself, were destroyed by the fire. Government inquiries have been launched into various parties involved in the management of the disaster in the following weeks.
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