Lahaina FIRE Update - the CLEANUP Begins on MAUI !!! - NEW Aerial Video taken January 19, 2024

hey Aloha everyone so it's been about 5 months since the big lahina fire and this week actually marks a major milestone in our recovery process this is the week that we started phase two of the cleanup process which is where we actually start to remove and relocate the actual Ash debris from the fire so I figured today would be a good day to get the Drone up in the air and just see what kind of progress they've made so far let's go take a look this video is going to be a complete aerial tour of the Lana burn Zone and we're going to start at the southernmost point that was affected by the fire in a community called puamana just like my last aerial tour of Laha it does take several drone flights stitched together in order to cover the entire area that was impacted by the fire if there's a particular neighborhood or condo community that you're interested in yourself and you want to jump right to that portion of the video check out the description down below cuz I will provide time stamps for different locations that being said I will share interesting updates to all the different locations that we fly through as well as pointing out the areas that I see the cleanup process process has begun so watch the entire video if you want to be fully informed on what is happening on the ground in Lina as you can see we're just now entering the area of puamana that was heaviest hit by the fire we have received a ton of rain on Maui over the last couple weeks and one of the things that I wanted to observe for myself was if there's any Visual Evidence of runoff from that rain into the ocean and as we start to fly over Front Street here and get a little bit closer to the ocean you can see that the water is a little more Brown than usual and certainly has received some of the runoff how much of the runoff actually consists of toxic Ash and debris from the fire is still yet to be determined there is a group of scientists that rushed into the water to start collecting samples results of testing those samples won't be known for quite some time but experts do say that the precipitation undoubtedly washed some amount of the fire residue into the ocean either directly from the surface or from underground sources take a look at the right hand side of your screen and you'll see a yellow excavator and several trucks that are loading the Ashen debris this is the first evidence that I've seen of the cleanup beginning now keep in mind this is just the first week of phase two of the cleanup process and it will take some time to ramp up the project but as we pass lahina Shores here on the left you can see more heavy equipment being staged in the parking lot below according to the Army Corps of Engineers their goal is to clear at least 100 properties over the next 30 days now we're coming up on lahina Harbor and the warf area and you will see another yellow escavator to the right of the screen now we're going to start a new drone flight here and continue to head north following along Front Street but before we get to Front Street we're going to cross right over the top of the world famous banion tree if you watched my last video you know that the banon tree does appear to have survived the big fire and I anticipate that as we continue to fly over we'll see more and more green leaves as it recovers now bringing your attention to the far left hand side of the screen in the water and you'll see that there is a sailboat that has run ground right next to Front Street we're actually going to see another sailboat just a little bit farther north that also run ground right next to Front Street sometime in the last 6 weeks now we're coming up on the intersection of Front Street and lahina Luna Street and as we're crossing over I just want to mention real quick that later on in the video I have a drone flight that starts at the bottom of L Luna Road and travels all the way up into the Lana Luna neighborhood almost all the way to the bypass pass I mention it just because my last video had a ton of comments requesting to see that particular neighborhood let me know in the comment section below if there's any particular areas in lahina that you'd like me to focus on in my next video we're now passing over what was once the lahina outlet mall and on the left hand side of the screen you'll see the second sailboat that I had mentioned previously we're now coming up on the channel House condominiums as well as the Seaman Hospital Museum and Lina residential Condominiums another huge milestone that was announced just a couple days ago is that the Department of Water Supply has amended the unsafe water advisory for this portion of lahina which means that the water has been tested and deemed safe for unrestricted use including drinking water the county does provide a interactive map that shows where the water advisories are still in effect I'll share a link to that interactive map in the description Down Below in case you're curious to see what areas of laa now have safe drinking water but as of January 19th K Village and a lot of the baby Beach neighborhood is now deemed safe drinking water to the right of the screen we're just finishing passing the K Village neighborhood and about to cross over the K stream on the other side of the stream is the old lahana luau on the ocean side of Front Street and on the mountain side of Front Street is the lahana caner mall which has Safeway and Long's Drugs Safeway has been open for quite some time now and I've heard that Mala restaurant which we're about to fly over right now is set to open sometime in February we're going to continue heading north along Front Street until we reach the intersection of Front Street and the hono aani highway the condominium building on the ocean that is still standing that's lahina roads and we're almost to the end of Front Street the neighborhood that is on the mountain side of the highway is wakoli neighborhood in the middle right hand side of the screen on the mountain side of the highway you'll see a brown lot that appears to have already completed the cleanup process in the wakoli neighborhood so we're going to start a new flight here on the other side of the highway and let's fly through Waki and see how much evidence of progress we can see in this part of Lina town the US Army Corps of Engineers has set two separate criteria for determining the order in which Lots get cleaned up the first criteria is they want to clean up the properties that are near houses that are still standing with Maui's housing crisis still fully in effect it's important that we clean up the areas where there's still homes so that people can safely move back into the homes that survive the fire the second criteria that they're taking into consideration is the potential for runoff into the ocean so they want to clean up the properties that are closest to the ocean first so that it minimizes the amount of runoff potential that can occur now we're heading south over the wuli neighborhood this time we're going to take a path that's a little bit farther up the mountain side as you can see there are a number of homes in this neighborhood that did survive the fire so it does make sense that they are putting a lot of focus on cleaning up the Lots in this area first I'm going to jump to a clip that focuses on one of the lots that is currently in the cleanup process as you can see there's a couple yellow excavators that are working on these lots and they're loading a red truck with a few other trucks that are waiting in queue for when this one's full you also notice that there are a couple people in what appear to be white hazmat suits that are spraying down the area to make sure that the dust does not get into the air let's continue our path heading south by the way if you appreciate the time and energy it takes to put these videos together please hit the like button and consider sharing this video with anyone you know that also would appreciate fact-based updates to the lahana recovery process after the big fire we're headed towards the lahina Gateway Center which has Ross and Ace Hardware as well as food land farms and on the left hand side of the screen right now is a new housing project that was actually started before the fire in a second here I'm going to twist the Drone to take a look up the hill and see exactly how far along they are with that project okay starting a new flight here on the ocean side of the highway this time and flying over the Safeway parking lot look at how many cars there are obviously Safeway is open for business and and it looks like it's pretty busy in the middle of the screen you'll see another construction project this is a commercial project as far as I know I believe it's a Bank of Hawaii and a few places to eat that are being built and I believe the project was planned well before the fire but if there's anybody out there that has some inside knowledge of exactly what this project is please share that information in the comment section now flying over the coma stream back into my neighborhood coma village and we're going to fly right over the top of the town home buildings that were lost in the neighborhood as I had mentioned earlier in the video I received a lot of requests from viewers that wanted to take a closer look at the neighborhoods that were more up the mountain in my last video I didn't capture a whole lot of the L Luna neighborhood so in this flight we're going to start at the corner of Front Street and lahina Luna right next to the coast and we're going to work our way up the mountain side we're flying directly towards one of laha's most recognizable landmarks which is the Old pineer Mill Smoke Stack so this is Lina Luna neighborhood and it really is one of Maui's oldest neighborhoods it seems the fire had the biggest impact wherever the buildings were the oldest and unfortunately this neighborhood was comprised of mostly older homes and it was completely destroyed by the fire in the center of the screen now we're coming up on another property that has begun the cleanup process we're about to fly right over the top of another yellow escavator along with the truck waiting to be loaded so this is pretty close to the highest point the fire reached in this neighborhood so so we're going to spin the Drone around and fly back down the hill this time we're going to take a little bit of a different path and we'll also fly right over the top of the newer koha homes neighborhood which we're entering right now and eventually we'll reach the opaa condominium complex on the right side of the screen is the Kom stream and on the other side of the stream is the emerald Plaza commercial area so we're now approaching the opaa at Laina condominium complex I actually lived in this community myself for several years before we moved across the street into K Village as you can see about half the buildings in the community did burn down and the other half are still standing of course on the other side of the highway we're returning to K Village the little Park area in the center of K Village that looks like a lake is actually a planned retention Basin and it does tend to fill up when we receive a lot of rain like we did over the last couple weeks so we're going to continue our path heading south over lahat town and this time we're going to stay a little more Inland as we follow the highway the two-story concrete structure that we're about to fly over now is the parking garage at the outlets of Maui we're now coming up on the intersection of w and papala Street and about to fly over the parking lot for the old lahina Center which held Foodland grocery store now coming up on the intersection of w and lahina Luna Road and you'll see a police cruiser heading up Lina Luna Road patrolling the area the parking lot with the solar panels on the left side of the screen is the sper condominium complex now we're coming coming up on the intersection of Dickinson Street and Y Na and you can see that we are about to fly over some more heavy equipment on the left hand side of the screen is the analu condominium complex which unfortunately was completely destroyed in the fire now we're coming up on the intersection of prison Street and W A Street the property in the center of the screen with the high walls is the old lahina prison historical landmark now we're coming up on Shaw Street and about to fly into the shark pit neighborhood on the right hand side of the screen you see the yellow escavator that is working on one of the Lots that's actually the first yellow excavator that we noticed as we were flying North along Front Street in the center of the screen we'll see another property that has a yellow excavator that is working on cleanup so throughout the video I noticed five different properties that were actively in the cleanup process and they're all spread in different areas of Lina town I also saw at least two properties that appeared to have already completed the cleanup now that being said identifying evidence of Cleanup in an area that's spread so large is kind of like finding a needle in a hay stack so if you noticed anything that I missed feel free to write it in the comment section below and it's my hope that the next time I do an aerial tour like this we'll see a whole whole lot more progress with the cleanup so we're coming up on the intersection of Front Street and the hono up he elani Highway which is right around the area where we started the video I do have one more quick video clip of L I'd like to show you and that's of my favorite place on the planet which is Baby Beach we started off looking north towards kopali now spinning towards the South and into linat town even with all the devastation it still looks absolutely gorgeous so that's it for the aerial tour of lahina as we begin phase two of our cleanup after the fire thanks so much for watching all the way to the end and don't forget to like share and subscribe until we see you on the next video aloha

Channel: Jesse G. Wald

Views: 462,483

Keywords: lahaina, lahaina fire, maui, maui fire, lahaina clean up, lahaina aerial video, Lahaina Fire update, lahaina strong, maui strong, lahaina recovery, lahaina maui, Jesse g wald, New lahaina drone vide, lahaina update, hawaii, rebuild lahaina, maui real estate, maui fire update

Id: ZgZlAskY-us

Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 22 2024