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LAHAINA >> Known outside Maui largely as a tourist attraction, visitor brochures obscure the fact that Lahaina for the most part is a working-class community with a sizeable immigrant population that was especially hit hard by the devastating Aug. 8 wildfire.
The names of 40 of the 115 confirmed dead so far — with many more to be identified — to a certain degree reflect the town’s character and history.
The fire reportedly started in the mauka area of Lahainaluna overlooking the coastline. The wind-whipped flames swept downslope, devouring the modest neighborhoods built on former sugar cane fields and plantation camps before jumping Honoapiilani Highway and burning through the densely populated heart of Lahaina to the ocean’s edge.
Along the way, more than 2,200 structures were lost, nearly 90% of them residences, according to early estimates.
The community of roughly 13,000 residents is wedged into a nearly 8-square-mile area between the Kaanapali resort to the north and Launiupoko to the south. Starting with the original Native Hawaiian settlers, the population has evolved as the town itself evolved in recent centuries, according to Theo Morrison, executive director of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation.
“It’s the only place in all of Hawaii that has been a significant place during every era of Hawaii’s history. Pre-contact, whaling, monarchy, missionary, plantation and tourism — they all brought in different people, plus the Hawaiians who were here. And the generations of people representing all those different eras are still here … ,” said Morrison, whose home was one of several in Wahikuli to survive the blaze.
“When I was reading through the list of the unaccounted for, it’s the names that you see right there. It tells you the diversity of the community — and it is truly diverse, with people who have roots that go way back.”
ACCORDING TO recent U.S. Census Bureau data, 74% of Lahaina’s population age 16 and older is in the civilian workforce, compared with 61% for Hawaii as a whole. The data also pegs Lahaina’s median household income at $80,035, lower than the state number at $88,005.
Additionally, 32% of Lahaina residents are foreign-born, compared with 18% statewide, and a language other than English is spoken at home in 36% of families, compared with 26% for Hawaii overall.
Data from the 2010 census indicates Filipinos comprised 40% of the population in three census tracts covering Lahaina.
With two now-defunct sugar plantations — Hawaiian Commercial &Sugar Co. in the central portion of Maui and Pioneer Mill Co. in Lahaina — the island already was home to a large Filipino community well before tourism began to flourish in the 1960s and ’70s.
Pioneer Mill ceased operations in 1999, and at the time of the Aug. 8 wildfire, an overwhelming number of West Maui residents worked in the retail, restaurant, activities, service and hospitality sectors in support of the visitor industry.
UNITE HERE Local 5 represents 285 members who live in Lahaina and work in the hotel, health care and food services industries, with an additional 600 or so members living elsewhere on Maui, according to Cade Watanabe, the union’s financial secretary-treasurer.
The bulk of union membership is Filipino, Watanabe said, and “the vast majority of membership that live in Lahaina have been directly affected” by the disaster. At the Sheraton Maui Resort &Spa alone, 80 union members lost everything, he said, as did eight who worked at Kaiser Permanente’s Lahaina clinic, which burned to the ground.
Former longtime hotel workers are among the dead that have been named so far. They include Alfredo Galinato, 79, who retired several years ago from his job as “the bird man” taking care of parrots and other wildlife at the Westin Maui Resort &Spa in Kaanapali.
After many years at the Marriott’s Maui Ocean Club, Antonia “Toni” Molina, 64, was working at the Tommy Bahama Marlin Bar at the Outlets of Maui on Front Street when the power went out Aug. 8 and she decided to return to her home. Despite assuring concerned relatives she would be evacuating, her remains were found on her property.
Another victim, Lynn Manibog, 74, retired after 35 years with the Royal Lahaina Resort then spent 10 years as a substitute teacher, according to her daughter.
All three lived just within a few blocks of one another on the mauka side of Honoapiilani Highway. Living just a few houses away was Conchita Sagudang, 75, who died with her 55-year-old son, Danilo Sagudang, while trying to flee the fast-spreading flames. Both were from the Abra province in the Philippines.
THE LIST of the dead from the Aug. 8 wildfire also is noticeable for the fact that 29 of the 40 victims named so far were 65 and older.
However, with only 15% of Lahaina’s population age 65 and older, according to census data, compared with 20% for Hawaii as a whole, the large share of older residents who died in the fire could be an indication they had more difficulty evacuating to safety or were more reluctant to leave their longtime homes, as surviving family members have reported.
At least four of the victims were tenants at the Hale Mahaolu Eono independent-living apartment complex on Lahainaluna Road for low-income individuals. The 35-unit complex was leveled in the blaze. Hale Mahaolu said Wednesday it has been unable to contact another of its tenants and that families have reported three others are unaccounted for.
Among those lost were Joe Schilling, 67, whose final text messages to family and friends indicated he was staying behind to help five other residents who needed assistance, and Buddy Jantoc, 79, a beloved local musician who toured the world with musicians including Carlos Santana, was a fixture at local hotels and played for several halau hula.
Hale Mahaolu, a private nonprofit housing corporation, said it owns and/or manages three other properties in Lahaina for low-income residents that are believed to have been heavily damaged or destroyed: the 112-unit Lahaina Surf and the county-owned Komohana Hale and Crossroads, each with 20 units.
“Other Hale Mahaolu tenants remain missing, and we are profoundly worried about them,” Hale Mahaolu Executive Director Grant Chun said in a statement. “We must brace ourselves for more bad news in the days and weeks ahead. We are here to provide any necessary assistance and support during this difficult time.”
A number of other housing projects for low-income and older residents were located in the disaster zone, including the 89-unit Kaiaulu o Kupuohi apartments on Kupuohi Street that just opened in December for families who earn up to 60% of the area median income.
HISTORIC WAIOLA Church on Wainee Street in the older section of Lahaina also was consumed by the fire, along with surrounding homes. Kahu Anela Rosa said the diverse neighborhood was home to many kupuna, longtime Asian and Hawaiian families, multigenerational households and young couples just starting their families. It was not uncommon to see residents riding bicycles to work and for recreation, and children walking to Kamehameha III Elementary School on Front Street, now in ruins.
“Everything was so nearby, and to think that it’s all gone,” she said.
Twenty church families lost their homes in the fire, according to Rosa, 64, who lives in the Villages of Leiali‘i Hawaiian homestead subdivision on the northern edge of Lahaina, where two of 104 homes burned and many others sustained roof damage.
Throughout the years Lahaina also attracted its share of mainland transplants seeking sun, sand and a more relaxed lifestyle. Rebecca Rans, 57, better known as Becky Wells, was one of them.
Wells moved to Maui from Huntington Beach, Calif., around 25 years ago. According to her sister, “She always had a love for water, sand and just sunshine. … She had found her place where she belonged.”
As the Aug. 8 fire rampaged through Lahaina’s mauka neighborhoods, Wells and her partner, Douglas Gloege, 59, who had been on Maui about 20 years, fled their home. Their remains were found behind a Subway restaurant building just a few blocks away.
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