LAHAINA >> As Marine 1 gave President Joe Biden an aerial view of the haunting aftermath from the firestorm that left historic Lahaina town in ashes, Maui Mayor Richard Bissen stood inside tiny Kapalua Airport — awaiting the president’s arrival and trusting it would send a message of “hope.”
And that’s what it did.
“The devastation is overwhelming,” Biden said, standing on the makai side of the 150-year-old banyan tree that has come to symbolize hope and survival.
“Today it’s burned but it’s still standing,” Biden said of iconic banyan. “The tree survived for a reason. I believe it’s a very powerful symbol of what we can and will do to get through this crisis.”
Biden and first lady Jill Biden walked hand in hand — accompanied by Gov. Josh Green and first lady Jaime Kanani Green, who also joined hands — as they toured burned-out Front Street and stopped near the community’s cherished banyan tree, now singed and surrounded by burned-out cars and crumbled buildings. The Old Lahaina Courthouse next to the banyan also burned.
Biden promised that he and the federal government will continue to help the people of Lahaina with “whatever it takes, as long as it takes” to rebuild from the Aug. 8 wind-whipped inferno that killed at least 115 people so far, with hundreds still listed as “not found.”
Biden pledged to rebuild the original capital of the Hawaiian kingdom only in the way the community wants, responding to lingering concerns that some luxury tourist community will rise out of the ashes and make housing unaffordable for survivors who lost their homes and still have no word on the fates of loved ones.
In Green’s remarks on Front Street, he emphasized that travel to West Maui remains restricted to returning residents and emergency responders. But the rest of Maui and all of the other islands welcome visitors.
Green encouraged tourists to visit and “to support our local economy and speed the recovery.”
“The world is watching, and we will show it the true strength of our culture, our people and all that we believe,” Green said. “And as they watch us heal, protect and nurture one another, the world will be reminded why it loves and embraces Hawaii and we embrace it.”
Biden — during his visit to historic Lahaina town and later before a gathering of an estimated 350 people at the Lahaina Civic Center — twice invoked the memory of his onetime mentor, Hawaii’s late and beloved U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye.
Biden ended his remarks at the Civic Center by pledging to meet with anyone who wanted to talk to him after. “If I didn’t, Danny, I know you’re watching,” Biden said to laughter. “I know you’re watching. I think I learned the lessons you taught me.”
Speaking with as many people in the room as he could delayed his departure by over an hour.
The Bidens’ day began by interrupting their vacation at Lake Tahoe to fly to Maui. They boarded Air Force 1’s “baby” Boeing 757 — marked exactly like its bigger 747 — and lifted off at 8:43 a.m. local time for a flight that lasted five hours and 13 minutes.
They landed at Kahului Airport at 11:11 Hawaii time, then boarded Marine 1 to tour the devastation in Lahaina before landing at Kapalua Airport.
As his motorcade exited Kapalua Airport and turned onto Honoapiilani Highway for Lahaina, a group of protesters shouted profanities, flashed their middle fingers and waved signs reading “Maui Strong” and “Trump won.”
The greeting was much different on Front Street.
The Bidens and Greens hugged and thanked first responders, including a search-and-rescue yellow Labrador retriever named Dexter who wore boots on all four paws to protect them while searching amid the rubble, which remains hot in some places.
“Did you guys catch the boots on here?” Biden asked reporters.
Later he met with Native Hawaiian cultural elders for a blessing that was held out of earshot of reporters.
Journalists were not allowed to photograph the blessing and were ushered away as it began.
Later, outside the Lahaina Civic Center, residents in the nearby Leialii Hawaiian homestead neighborhood gathered as Biden’s motorcade passed by.
They proudly displayed the Hawaiian flag and waved sovereignty signs. One household had placed a sign on their fence saying, “Tourists keep out.”
Kapali Keahi, 48, stood in the center of a burned-out swath of land called Wahikuli for hours holding a Hawaiian flag atop a pole.
“Biden’s presence here has drawn us to the roadside to hold our flags,” Keahi said. “The message is that we are standing in solidarity not necessary for Biden — somewhat in spite of the efforts of government. We are able to take care of ourselves. This is a land of resiliency.”
Keahi said some members of the community have accepted government help, but prior treatment of Native Hawaiians has left many skeptical about federal and state support and aid.
Most community members want to stay in their homes, he said, and are fearful that the government has been signaling that it wants to push them out due to poor air quality it warns might contain arsenic and asbestos when old, wooden homes burned in the inferno.
Keahi said the community also worries that Green and Bissen will allow tourism to return to West Maui too soon.
“The tourists will strain the resources, and we need to put resources to work for the aina and the community,” he said. “Please don’t come to West Maui for at least a few years until everything is recovered.”
Keahi said two homes were lost in the neighborhood, which like all of the lahui needs space to mourn and begin rebuilding.
Oahu resident Kawai Hoe, 44, said Biden’s arrival wasn’t top of mind when he arrived Sunday night to help.
“I’m focused on the ohana,” Hoe said. “There are lots of people in shock and in need. The needs are constantly changing and evolving. The most important thing is to be present and to show aloha.”
Oahu resident Roman Corpuz, 35, agreed: “The message is aloha first and foremost and above all.”
Inside the Civic Center, Biden tried to ease community concerns, pledged support and offered consolation.
“Jill and I are here to grieve with you but also want you to know the entire country is here for you,” Biden said. “That’s not hyperbole. We mean that. The entire … country is here for you.
“We just surveyed the damage. I want you to know: whatever it takes, as long as it takes.”
To applause, Biden said, “We’re going to get it done for you, but get it done the way you want it done — not get it done somebody else’s way. No, I mean it.”
Biden told a story of a fire at his home in Delaware and said, “God made man, and then he made a few firefighters. You’re all crazy, thank God. The only people who run into flames to help other people. And they ran into flames to save my wife and save my family. Not a joke.”
He repeated the story of losing his first wife and “my baby” — and nearly his two sons — when they were broadsided by a tractor- trailer while Christmas shopping.
“Only thing worse than losing someone is not (being) sure whether you’ve lost someone,” he told the survivors and evacuees. “Not sure where they are. My heart goes out to you — Jill and I — it aches for you, those of you who are trying to determine whether or not the person who is missing is missing and unaccounted for reasons that are devastating.”
Biden also said:
>> “What I’ve observed in my short time here today is the courage, the community, the sense of togetherness you have. It’s not an ordinary community. It’s a community based on faith in one another. I’ve watched. I’ve had an opportunity to get to know your governor; I know your senators, know your folks. What they said about who you are is true. It’s true and it matters.”
>> “There’s as an Irish poet who wrote a poem called ‘The Cure at Troy.’ There’s a stanza in it that seems to be appropriate: He said, ‘History teaches us not to hope on this side of the grave. But then once in a lifetime, that longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.’
“It’s time it rises up for you all. It’s time to rebuild this community the way you want it built — the way you want it — so it’s still a community, not a group of beautiful homes, but a community.”
>> “Every time I’d walk out of my grandpop’s house — he was an old Irish guy — he’d yell, ‘Joey, keep the faith.’ And my grandmother went, ‘No, Joey, spread it.’ Let’s spread the faith.”
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Staff writer Allison Schaefers contributed to this report.
