In the hours before a wildfire engulfed the town of Lahaina, Maui County officials failed to activate sirens that would have warned the entire population of the approaching flames.
and instead relied on a series of sometimes confusing social media posts that reached a much smaller audience.
"He said, 'No, I am waiting for the authorities to see what they are going to do,'" Bermudez recounted. "And I said, 'No, no no, please go. This smoke is going to kill us. You have to go. Please. You gotta get out of here. Don't wait for nobody.'"Bermudez doesn't know if he survived.Officials with Maui's Emergency Management Agency did not immediately respond Friday to questions about sirens and other communications issues.
The timeline shows public updates on the fires were spotty and often vague, and much of the county's attention was focused on another dangerous, larger fire in Upcountry Maui that was threatening neighborhoods in Kula. It shows no indication that county officials ever activated the region's all-hazard siren system, and reveals other emergency alerts were scarce.
The power also went out early that morning, leaving several thousand customers in the Lahaina/West Maui region and Upcountry without electricity. Several downed power lines required repair. In the Upcountry evacuation Facebook post at 3:20 p.m., Fire Assistant Chief Jeff Giesea shared an ominous warning.
The government's social media attention turned from Upcountry back to Lahaina at 4:29 p.m., when Hawaii EMA posted on X that the local Maui EMA had announced an immediate evacuation for an inland subdivision in Lahaina. Residents were directed to shelter at the Lahaina Civic Center on the north side of town.
Lana Vierra left her neighborhood about a mile away around the same time. Her boyfriend had stopped by and told her he'd seen the approaching fire on the drive. Nathan Baird and his family escaped by driving past a barricade, he told Canadian Broadcaster CBC Radio. The U.S. Coast Guard's first notification about the fires was when the search and rescue command center in Honolulu received reports of people in the water near Lahaina at 5:45 p.m., said Capt. Aja Kirksy, commander of Coast Guard Sector Honolulu.
Riley Curran, who fled his Lahaina home after climbing up a neighboring apartment building to get a better look at the fire, doesn't think there is anything the county could have done.
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