As people across the world process the devastating aftermath of the fires that destroyed most of historic Lahaina, Maui residents are leaping into action to deliver aid and forming ad hoc networks to do it.
Both residents and visitors fleeing Lahaina have been making there way to War Memorial Gym in Wailuku, one of several shelters on the island. Donations have flooded in for the displaced. But for the past two days, a field nearby the gym has also been a drop-off place for donations to help those still in Lahaina.
Local food logistics company Hawaii Foodservice Alliance LLC has been lending the services of its fleet of trucks to ferry donations from the gym to the Ritz- Carlton Maui in Kapalua, which has become a hub for aid distribution for those in and around Lahaina and those without power on the western coast.
Jay Dudoit, operations manager for HFA, recalled making one of the first deliveries, driving along the charred remains of Lahaina and seeing throngs of desperate people, some with just hand-carried bags, trying to get what they could.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Dudoit. “Houses can be rebuilt, but the sentimental things can never be replaced. And that’s the stuff that they lost, and you can see it in their faces.”
Maui Parks and Recreation employees and volunteers worked together to organize donations and load them onto the trucks.
Kihei resident Sue Goldman, one of the volunteers, said she and her family fled her home Tuesday night as fires approached Kihei and watched the flames from their car as they tried in vain to sleep. On Thursday as Goldman arrived at Memorial Gym, she said she wanted to be proactive and feel like she was helping.
Working together, people in the field loaded hundreds of pallets of bottled water, as well as bags and boxes full of food, diapers, blankets and clothing to send westward.
Ikaika Campos, HFA’s logistics manager, has been running the convoys over two days. He said he’s done similar types of responses after storms and extended power outages, but he’s never worked on anything quite on this scale.
Along with the sheer volume of aid, the convoy has to coordinate with Maui Police Department to make it through police and National Guard checkpoints posted up and down the coast to keep people away from Lahaina.
Police and National Guard members have cordoned off most of the town. HFA was told that detectives are combing the wreckage for bodies.
Campos said “there was a police officer at the checkpoint, said there’s a bunch of bodies in there all on the road on the street, so absolutely no one could go in there.”
Even the roads they can use aren’t without hazards. Without power, no traffic lights are functioning, and during the Thursday- morning run, the convoy was briefly delayed when a truck snared one of the many fallen power lines on the road from Lahaina to Kapalua.
At the Ritz-Carlton, a long line of cars lined up as they made their way to where hotel employees, personnel with the Maui Emergency Management Agency and volunteers distributed aid to Lahaina residents still in the area. Many had lost their homes, and those who hadn’t were without power.
Maui officials reached out to the Ritz-Carlton because it has several facilities well suited for storage and logistics. It had been a similar aid distribution center in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. But like the rest of West Maui, the hotel itself is also largely without power and cellular service. Its kitchen is relying on propane to cook meals.
Andrew Rogers, general manager of the Ritz-Carlton, was overseeing aid distribution on Thursday. He said “the hard part … is that half the people don’t have gas to get here or communication to know about it, so I think we’re just scratching the surface with the people who are still in need.”
Rogers and his staff rely on handheld radios to coordinate onsite. He said, as of Thursday, all of the hotel’s guests had left — close to 1,000 when the fire struck. The hotel is now focused on supporting aid efforts, as well as housing staff who lost their homes.
One of those employees, head of security Joel Rodrique, expressed deep frustration with the strict roadblocks. After losing their home, his wife left town to get supplies elsewhere on the island, but now isn’t allowed to drive back to the Ritz-Carlton. Now the two are unable to call each other due to patchy communications lines and unable to see each other as Rodrique continues his duties at the hotel.
“My wife stuck on the other side for no reason,” said Rodrique. “She’s got no place to stay, she’s living in a truck with my dog.”
Rogers said that several families have complained of separation and mounting frustration at the lack of communication, and expressed hope that authorities would make restoring cell service in West Maui a priority.
Brian Sivertsen, a retired firefighter who was volunteering at the Ritz-Carlton, also expressed frustration with how officials have handled communications. He said bluntly “they’re lying about a lot of things.”
He said that it was evident early on that the death toll was much higher than initial counts. On Wednesday, he went down to see the devastation himself. Sivertsen said he spent roughly three hours surveying the wreckage until he said National Guard members and police ordered him to leave.
He said that in the time he was there he saw bodies on the streets, people who had seemingly been trapped in cars, and corpses in the water.
“I just saw floating things I didn’t realize I was looking at at first,” he said.
Sivertsen showed the Honolulu Star-Advertiser several pictures he took, including several with bodies. He pointed to one saying that the dead man was a homeless Lahaina resident he had known.
The former firefighter said the situation is becoming desperate, noting that a friend of his was carjacked as they were looking for supplies.
“That’s why this is so necessary,” he said of the aid efforts. “Because people are running out, and desperate people will do anything.”
Back at War Memorial Gym, Dayna Kaia helped load donations onto the trucks. She grew up on Maui but lives on Hawaii island. She said she has several family members from Lahaina who lost their homes.
She flew out as quickly as she could on Wednesday to pitch in any way she could.
“I gotta come back here,” said Kaia. “I live there but gotta get back home. This is home.”
