It’s no longer inside information that the Maui Emergency Management Agency’s (MEMA) ability to coordinate a countywide response to a fast-developing disaster was inadequate on Aug. 7, 2023. In the wake of August’s devastating Lahaina fire, that became plain within hours.
Nonetheless, Maui County has sought to block or delay releasing information about MEMA and countywide preparation for emergencies after the West Maui fire — or more accurately, fires, as a 2018 fire that shared similar characteristics with the 2023 disaster is also connected here.
The state has contracted with the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI) for a deeply researched set of reports on the fire, including the sequence of events in August, investigation of the fire’s cause, and “evidence-based analyses” of subjects that include Maui County’s state of preparation in comparison with “industry standards and best practices,” including flaws or omissions in the response. The investigations are supervised by state Attorney General Anne E. Lopez.
As Lopez has rightly emphasized, a thoroughly reported, big-picture view of the facts pertinent to the 2023 fire is necessary for future planning. “We want to make sure that we have all of the facts possible so those recommendations can be clear and complete and comprehensive,” she states.
It’s essential that Maui County cooperate fully with the state in collecting the information needed to make these findings. Unfortunately, it has chosen to throw roadblocks in the path of FSRI investigators. In November and again in April, the AG’s office had to turn to subpoenas to garner information from the county’s agencies. The county has stonewalled investigators, and most recently, acted to prevent questioning of the current MEMA chief.
This can’t be tolerated — by residents of Lahaina, Maui or the state — and it’s incumbent on Maui Mayor Richard Bissen and the Maui County Council to assert the leadership necessary to make all pertinent records and personnel available throughout this investigation. In the latest instance of resistance to transparency, Maui County officials moved to quash a subpoena to MEMA head Amos Lonokailua-Hewett about what the county learned from the 2018 West Maui wildfires. That’s wrong.
Lonokailua-Hewett, who assumed office in December, has direct knowledge of these events, and can speak to what was reported to other county agencies after the 2018 fire, because he was a Maui Fire Department battalion chief and incident commander in 2018. Yet he is the only county official instructed not to testify.
It’s Maui County’s position that since Lonokailua-
Hewett was not a county employee on Aug. 7-8, 2023, and had no role then in MEMA, he should not be included. But preventing the MEMA chief from passing on his prior knowledge is self-defeating. This cover-your-behind strategy isn’t acceptable from any taxpayer-funded government agency, which must be expected to conduct its business in the public eye.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the modus operandi for Maui County, and it’s not to the county’s benefit. Blocking a public investigation over a catastrophic event that killed at least 101 people isn’t serving the public, nor ethical. Whatever actions have been taken — or not taken — on the public’s behalf, along with whatever knowledge has — or should have been — accumulated must be made public, because the very function of governance is at stake. They can no longer be hidden from view.
A judge will determine if Lonokailua-Hewett must submit to questioning. In the meantime, the public does already know what he thought of MEMA’s structure and capabilities at the time of his appointment. He bluntly stated in a Feb. 15 meeting with Fire and Public Safety commissioners that MEMA was not equipped, either with staff or with adequate procedures, to serve as lead agency in case of a disastrous emergency. That’s chilling.
No foot-dragging or forced silence can be allowed to diminish investigation into the causes or lessons of the Lahaina fire. That much, certainly, is owed to its victims.
