How Colonialism Set the Stage for Maui's Destruction by Fire

the death toll from the Maui wildfires has reached nearly 100 and is expected to climb far higher and what is now considered the deadliest wildfire in the United States in a century it's clear the fire is Hawaii's worst natural disaster The Blaze decimated the historic town of Lahaina which once served as the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom as it spread at a rate of a mile every minute propelled by wind gusts from Hurricane Dora hundreds of miles away a lawsuit filed against the utility Hawaiian Electric alleges electrified power lines blown over by the high winds helped the Wildfire spread at such a rapid pace and that the company should have de-energized these power lines after a high wind alert this is a survivor of the fire named akinesiva describing how her family got stuck in traffic while trying to escape the Ferocious Flames she was with her husband and three kids age 15 13 and 9. they recorded part of their experience on a cell phone as the blue skies around them turn gray then black this here is where we were at before we made the decision because this is the electrical that lit up the planes so I was that's my husband in the passenger seat because he kept getting in and out to hose down small fires that were starting just from our parking stall to the entrance of our apartment complex it went from Blue Skies to gray to Black and all we've seen was Embers from fire that we had no idea was going on there was no siren nothing and um I mean it was just heartbreaking seeing our community my neighbors like lots of elderly people I'm trying to make it down the stairs just to get into their car um and out of nowhere this fire jumped from the parking structure over to a tree and then onto an electric host by then we were right next to that electric post and as a mom I mean I'm so many things are going through my mind cars are panicking and I have it on video where my son was you know in the video he's like oh Mom it's hot I can feel it so instantly I'm telling my husband I need a reverse I need a reverse we need to get out and run everything's coming so quick we could feel the heat is sitting in our car and out of nowhere I all I don't know where I just hear banging on this window and everything's dark so I look to my left and I'm literally right next to this car where there's a grandmother is yelling for help and she's just telling me please help me I have a baby and I just you know at that time I'm like what do I do so of course I jump out I tell my husband you tend to the grandma I'm grabbing the baby I run out I run around her car open up the back the baby's on her side right behind her I reached over I grabbed this baby she was about two and a half years old I grabbed her she had she was sitting on a blanket I wrapped her in the blanket and I told my kids you guys run don't turn around the book for me and my nine-year-old couldn't she just kept telling me Mom I can't please Mom [Music] this is the car where we saved the baby from he took out running this way [Applause] ran out this way right here to the corner there's a fence that has Mona and my husband and the neighbor bent to get everybody to safety we were all hiding behind this wall here we run to the corner and we meet up with a few pets there our neighbors there's about a good nine of us a good nine of us we meet there and we just noticed that we're at a dead end we're at a dead end and we're just standing there we have our backs through this building and we're looking at each other and we're like you know my son was like oh mom is this it and I mean what do you tell your kids you know and um and I told my kids you know if it is my husband told him if it is you know thank you Lord thank you God thank you for my family all the highness Lana's home I mean so many times I tell myself I need to get off this rock the moment I'm in the air I'm homesick I mean being here on the other side of the island I am grateful I'm thankful that my brother and his wife opened their home to us but just being here just being here on this side of the island I'm still homesick like my heart is in Lahaina I will always have a place in my heart to line I mean lahaina's home period that was akineseva who escaped the fire in the hinatown with her husband and her three kids 15 13 and 9. this weekend relatives of the missing frantically search for any sign that their loved ones may still be alive Maui County mayor Richard Bisson described the scene in the Hina in an interview with ABC News Sunday closest thing I can compare it to is perhaps a war zone or maybe a bomb went off it was uh cars in the street doors open you know melted to the ground most structures no longer exist and for blocks and blocks of of this I'm familiar with what it looked like growing up here on Maui especially with my mom working at one of the restaurants there the Pioneer Inn 17 years and so it doesn't resemble anything that looked like that it looked like when I was growing up meanwhile many residents are asking why Hawaii's outdoor siren warning system with about 80 alarms on the island of Maui alone did not get activated to warn the residents about the fire Hawaii Emergency Management agency spokesperson told CNN quote nobody at the state and nobody at the county attempted to activate those Sirens based on our records it was largely a function of how fast the Flames were moving they were trying to coordinate response on the ground Hawaii officials released a report last year that ranked which natural disasters residents would most likely be threatened by the list included tsunamis earthquakes and volcanic eruptions the risk of wildfires to human life was listed as low this is democratic U.S senator Maisie hirono of Hawaii speaking Sunday I'm not going to make any excuses for this tragedy but the attorney general has launched a review of what happened with those sirens and some of the other actions that were taken so that is happening and there will be a time enough I would say for those kinds of reviews and investigations to occur why Senator hirono was speaking on CNN for more we go to Kula Maui to speak with kalikoa a professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii Maui College we welcome you to democracy now we were also going to be joined by another guest but her uncle just died in hospital which is an indication of the number of people I mean we're right now the numbers at 96 but Professor how much larger based on your information knowing friends family neighbors do you think this number is going to go aloha to answer your question you know unfortunately What's um you know I myself what I witnessed and I myself in understanding and discussing and talking with others uh intimate with that situation as I was told by a high-ranking county official you know they they hope and they don't expect it to reach as high as you know four to five hundred but they would not be surprised now I know that sounds outrageous and sounds high but we do know there's still hundreds of residents and um visitors who are still unaccounted for so you know although we're slowly reaching 100 there are still many many cars burnt out cars and many burnt out structures and homes and buildings that have yet to really be um surveyed and looked at so Professor can you talk about the fact that there were no warning sirens I mean and you've got this lawsuit now um against the electric company the idea though it's not exactly clear what happened that it's these power lines going down in this intense wind that sparked fires can you talk about the lack of preparedness yeah and it's you know it's in one way it is lack of preparedness I guess the intensity of the wind and you know um and people don't mind I recognize that on Maui at that time there were four major fires that were happening on Maui at that time Lahaina just being one of them um the Lahaina far unfortunately uh wasn't aerated there have been fires in the past pretty um pretty close to the where the most of the damage occurred um it is very true I know for a fact that I talking with people that I know um who were um startled in fact by the Heat and the wind and we're very afraid and we're you know kind of hunkered down in their apartments at that time right in the heart of Lahaina and it was only because of already feeding the heat keep that was approaching the building that in the very last moments that you know I personally uh know a story of a family uh single woman with a children who barely escaped and really because she had a four-wheel drive truck and was able to kind of climb over you know certain parts of the streets and navigate away and and herself barely barely got out of there alive and you know unfortunately when she left the apartment and left behind her she saw and witnessed uh the destruction and the burning effect of the building and cars and people behind her soul you know and she herself said that there was no warning sign no warning sounds no one had come around he was just basically uh their own Instinct and and you know uh and because of feeling the heat that was coming with the wind and this it wasn't just the power of the wind but it was The Heat Of The Wind that really you know medium fear for their lives and in the last moments I really you know because of lakh Sherlock was able to escape um and I can say specifically um the following morning I was able to go by boat and and walk right into uh the major area that had been destroyed and what I saw was in fact many many dozens and dozens of telephone poles on the ground um lines that were still you know burning and seemed to be alive and you could still see the sparkings and and so forth right on the street um and many of the uh homes and buildings I mean were were destroyed to ashes and so you could really see the intensity of the fire and the wind and from you know from that counts that I've I've heard from the people I've spoke to as they said it was as if the wind was on fire it was as if charcoal itself was blowing and and so you know there were many people that I understood who were trapped in their cars also and you know while the contemplating should they try to escape and run through the strong burning wind or should they stay in their car and you know I think perhaps because of the fear because of the actual heat of the fire of the Winds and many of them were unable to escape you know from the roads because of those power lines that because of the strong winds that have fallen upon the streets and the roads really prevented many people from escaping Professor you teach Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii and Maui College um can you tell us what it means to say that Lahaina Lahaina town is the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom give us a brief history how Hawaii became a part of the United States and what its relationship is with the mainland what should we should understand about the historic nature of Lahaina town they find the rest of the media talks about the tourist destination but there's a reason for that is because it is so historic you know some of the most beautiful beaches in the world it's on the leeward side of the mountains so it's very warm um it was also a place of lots of water so this is one of the things also maybe we had a chance to talk about later um historically it was the capital in you know ancient times from ancient times immemorial really of the island of Maui where the seat of government would be held uh many of the highest wrecking so-called Chiefs held Court in Lahaina um in fact right in the middle of the Haina was a little island between a little like fishpond Lake area called mokuula where you know the highest ranking Chiefs and some of the most secret items uh and so-called core Gods will be will be will be housed and so from time immemorial you know Lahaina was always seen as a really important Bread Basket there for a central place of the island and into more modern history um Lahaina specifically was the you know really the the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii and that's because of its is protected and sheltered Waters uh from the ocean um you know right into the early whaling period in fact into the beginning of the Hawaiian Kingdom and it's really doing the Hawaiian Kingdom Period Lahaina starts to play a very important role as a kind of a commercial center uh for trade where ships from all over the world would Dock and so forth and so you know Lahaina becomes a place where you know uh it's kind of like the crossroads of the Pacific with the many ships um in in just took an ad you know uh the Royal so-called family uh being raised in Lahaina um during the early 1800s where Hawaii for a short period effect was on that was a protectorate on the British Empire part of the British um Empire anyway um and in later on in 1839 the first um Declaration of Rights followed by 1840 the First Hawaiian Constitution was written right actually in Lahaina and she really was a seat of the government people don't recognize the first so-called school not just in Hawaii in the Pacific but you know many times in the context of putting Hawaii within the context of the United States you know it said that Hawaii or sorry Lahaina Luna which is a school uh was starting in 1831 is considered the oldest you know School West of the so-called Rockies um um and so you know for many for a long period up into the mid-1850s you know Hawaii was seen as again the the main capital um you know during that period of uh growth especially economic growth um there was a huge transformation where Agriculture and because of the large amounts of water in that area in fact the main the major area I know one of the names in fact was the word Wyatt means water the word it means to move you know unfortunately today most of their water no longer exists due to um streams which have been diverted uh you know uh the the um the transformation of the the environment from you know traditional native plants and and and and so-called forests which had been replaced first by sugar and then now unfortunately being replaced by these um what we call gentleman Estates these are you know uh very wealthy so-called mansions that are built in these in these areas and so you know you can see there's a transformation where Lahaina one time was a very important Agricultural Center commercial Trade Center uh to the whaling period and then became our large sugar Plantation era and then um in the 1960s really really began the you know the transformation of Lana really into a resort area and she had the vestiges of this real old kind of sense of a of a sea town um then slowly being replaced with um what becomes you know commercialized tour size centers and right down the line of Lahaina town you have Kaanapali which is a major in Kapalua major resort areas and so the economy the population and the escape the landscape itself was transformed really to meet the needs of mass tourism and I think that's also one of the other issues that you'll find if you look deep enough you kind of find um which cause a major transformation of the land itself and so therefore um you know then you compound that I think with the issues that you have with global warming and and so forth and you can see the extremes of uh winds and exchange perhaps of Heat and the drying up of the land itself um and the denuding of the land itself which really helped to spark um you know really became the Tinder for this this Matchbox that later exploded like a bomb in Lahaina and you know unfortunately and horrifically you know are people who have lived there since time immemorial um you know are suffering because of the consequences that have been you know imposed really from outside foreign forces in a moment we're going to speak with the world-renowned climate scientist Michael Mann um but I wanted to ask you Professor Kayo about the mutual Aid on the ground and also ask you about the uh demographics of Maui in terms of native Hawaiians if you can talk about that and then what kind of help is most needed at this point yeah that's okay yeah so you know right now this it was a very very slow process and low start I can say from the very beginning just slowly getting Aid and so it's only recently I'm probably like the last 24 hours I would think that you have much of the supplies and Aid that's needed have slowly has trickled in um into the Lahaina area and I understand you know part of it of course it's difficult because it's still a very dangerous base because of the fires um and so uh you know fortunately fortunately enough you know because of the work of the community and I gotta really really praise our community you know both Hawaiian and not Hawaiian Community many of people again live there for generations and those who have recently moved here including visitors have all chipped in and worked hard to um by participating and really providing that kind of supplies and you know I you know um was warned by seeing that even when you know unfortunately I think government failed in regards to providing the necessities of protection and safety and health for our people you know our people stepped up and you know I myself was able to participate in bringing in supplies uh by boat you know uh you know so-called by boat because we weren't allowed to drive into the area and and by both much of the supplies had been brought in and then later on even by today by small planes people started to bring in supplies um you know hopefully um this continues and hopefully you know whether it's medical concerns or um providing the kind of you know um you know just bringing in people to come in to look at whether or not we have poison so we have um The Ash and the suit and the and what you might find is remnants from home and paint and you know lead and whatever we just have 30 seconds but are you concerned in the rebuilding process of native Hawaiians being pushed out correct yes I think that's a very important my big concerning fact has been that really at the Forefront or at the table is that the needy Point population the families who are from against his timing Memorial in Lahaina should be at the Forefront in developing managing and planning um that is not just what's going on now but really in the revitalization in Lahaina to ensure in fact that native Hawaiian population continues to exist and it doesn't become replaced you know as a saying that you know decided that the so-called to supplant the native and I kind of always chant the idea to replant the native into places like Lahaina and you know hopefully we're able to guardian of push and political support to ensure that the community leaders of Lahaina help to Define what's best for behind that in the future I want to thank you very much for being with us professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii Maui College speaking to us on Maui

Channel: Democracy Now!

Views: 824,238

Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

Id: Yy94eVvUl_4

Length: 21min 19sec (1279 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2023