Nonprofit restoring Wi-Fi to Lahaina survivors cut off from the world

LAHAINA >> Lecamieann Shiffler oversaw the installation of reliable Wi-Fi transmitters along the shoreline of a grassroots distribution center Wednesday at Pohaku Park, better known to surfers as “S-Turns.”

Shiffler works for her brother-in-law’s nonprofit organization, Red Lightning, that goes around the world to supplement aid following disasters.

Since it formed in 2010, Red Lightning has provided help to Haiti; Japan following the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster; the Philippines; Vanuatu; Nepal; the U.S. Virgin Islands; and Pahoa in 2018 after Kilauea erupted, among other communities devastated by natural disasters.

But the group has never stepped in to restore Wi-Fi service like it’s doing around West Maui, said its CEO Michael Shiffler, who spends half of each year living in Kihei.

In the aftermath of the Aug. 8 inferno, survivors found themselves physically and technologically isolated, unable to tell loved ones they were safe — or to track down the missing.

“We’re linebackers,” Michael Shiffler said. “We look for gaps and fill them as fast as we can. … This time it’s communications.”

For Lecamieann Shiffler, the work of reconnecting families remains personal.

She’s Hawaiian and grew up in Lahaina while attending all four public schools.

Asked by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Wednesday how her family coped with the Aug. 8 blaze, Shiffler said they’re safe because all 11 of her family homes were wiped out by the 2018 Lahaina fire that also was fueled by high winds.

She now lives in Kihei with her husband, Justin, and her six children, ages 10 to 23, whom she tells how special Lahaina remains in her heart.

“I always would tell them it’s just a feel,” Shiffler said. “People all know each other and I love the community feeling here.”

Her brother-in-law, Michael Shiffler, said, “This is her family, brothers and sisters, her whole family.”

Getting Wi-Fi technology to communities cut off from hard-wired systems also represents different organizations working together, Shiffler said.

The Starlink receivers rely on satellites sent into near-Earth orbit by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.

The dishes need power, so the Sunrun Hawaii solar power company works side-by-side with Red Lightning to install its rooftop solar panels on the ground to not only drive the Starlink technology, but to also replace gas-­powered generators that have been running nonstop at distribution hubs like the one at Pohaku Beach since it opened the morning of Aug. 9.

The solar panels eliminate generator noise and the need to constantly refuel them.

Hub organizer Alika Peneku had to seek medical treatment at the hub when his blood pressure suddenly shot to 210 over 110, which he blamed on inhaling gas fumes.

“I couldn’t walk and I was ready to pass out,” Peneku said. “It was really scary.”

The signal from the Starlink dishes relies on clean solar energy from 20 400-watt panels, said Blake Briddell, general manager of Sunrun Hawaii, who oversaw Wednesday’s installation at Pohaku Park.

The energy then flows into two Tesla Powerwall batteries, where it’s converted from direct current to 16 more familiar-looking alternating current plugs.

Asked about the noisy generators that require fuel, Briddell said, “We don’t need to do that this close to the beach.”

Smaller Starlink units allow Wi-Fi use for up to five devices that will burn through data much faster if they stream or FaceTime, Michael Shiffler said.

More powerful units like the ones installed at Pohaku Park allow up to 50 users — as long as they’re within 100 feet — with the same restrictions.

“We have to put up signs that say, ‘No streaming, no gaming, no FaceTiming,’” Shiffler said. “‘Texts, emails only.’”

But there’s enough data to allow neighbors to help neighbors navigate online applications for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Lecamieann Shiffler said.

“FEMA forms don’t use a lot of data,” she said.

Shiffler has overseen the installation of the first 75 Starlink systems that have gone to individual residents, shopping centers and businesses. A group of lawyers was given a small mobile unit to drive around West Oahu to help survivors understand FEMA paperwork, she said.

Fifty more Starlinks are on order.

As soon as some units are installed, Lecamieann Shiffler said that users often text or email “how grateful they are.”

Monthly subscriptions for the Starlink data cost $200 to $250 per month, which Red Lightning plans to cover for the first two months in the aftermath of the Lahaina wildfire.

Then Michael Shiffler expects more traditional cell service and Wi-Fi access to begin returning. People who can afford the Starlink subscription service going into month three will be given the units if they want them, he said.

The collaboration and volunteer work to provide reliable Wi-Fi fits into the community-level effort to help people around Pohaku Park that began when Peneku — a handyman and contractor by trade — opened at 9 a.m. on Aug. 9 “with one little tent and barely anything.”

In the two weeks since, the hub has grown to include about 20 tents and 40 to 60 volunteers providing medical and mental health care, massages, acupuncture, chiropractic work and a food truck. The hub has distributed an estimated 7,000 to 9,000 pounds of food, water and other material and seen “at least 100,000 (people). At least!” Peneku said.

Asked if the hub has been supported by corporations or government agencies, Peneku said, “no, no, no, no, no, no.”

Kihei Ice has reliably donated ice, along with a shipment of produce from Haiku Farms that arrived as Peneku spoke.

Otherwise the hub has thrived without outside assistance thanks to “our friends and family,” he said.

And now anyone who comes to the hub after Wednesday can receive reliable Wi-Fi, too.

Reconnecting fire survivors with the world “means you’re not chasing signals all over to order prescriptions,” Peneku said. “It means the world.”