Hawaii fire death toll reaches 110; schools, road reopening

FILE PHOTO: Wildfire wreckage is seen Thursday, August 10, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. The search of the wildfire wreckage on the Hawaiian island of Maui on Thursday revealed a wasteland of burned-out homes and obliterated communities. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

LAHAINA, Hawaii — Public schools on Maui started the process of reopening and traffic resumed on a major road in signs of recovery a week after wildfires demolished a historic town and killed at least 110 people, while the head of the island’s emergency agency said he had “no regret” that sirens weren’t sounded to warn people about the encroaching flames.

At least three schools untouched by flames in Lahaina, where entire neighborhoods were reduced to ash, were still being assessed after sustaining wind damage, Hawaii Department of Education superintendent Keith Hayashi said.

“There’s still a lot of work to do, but overall the campuses and classrooms are in good condition structurally, which is encouraging,” Hayashi said in a video update. “We know the recovery effort is still in the early stages, and we continue to grieve the many lives lost.”

READ: Explainer: How did the Hawaii wildfires start? What to know about the Maui and Big Island blazes

Elsewhere crews cleaned up ash and debris at schools and tested air and water quality. Displaced students who enroll at those campuses can access services such as meals and counseling, Hayashi said. The education department is also offering counseling for students, family members and staff.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency opened its first disaster recovery center on Maui, “an important first step” toward helping residents get information about assistance, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said Wednesday. They also can go there for updates on aid applications.

Criswell said she would accompany President Joe Biden on Monday when he visits to survey the damage and “bring hope.”

READ: Biden to travel to Hawaii to meet with wildfire survivors

Elsewhere crews cleaned up ash and debris at schools and tested air and water quality. Displaced students who enroll at those campuses can access services such as meals and counseling, Hayashi said. The education department is also offering counseling for students, family members and staff.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency opened its first disaster recovery center on Maui, “an important first step” toward helping residents get information about assistance, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said Wednesday. They also can go there for updates on aid applications.

Criswell said she would accompany President Joe Biden on Monday when he visits to survey the damage and “bring hope.”

With the death toll rising by four since Tuesday to 110, a mobile morgue unit with additional coroners has been brought in to help. Search and recovery crews using cadaver dogs had scoured approximately 38% of the burn area by Tuesday, officials said, and the number of canine teams was increasing to more than 40.

READ: Death toll from devastating Maui fire reaches 101, Hawaii governor says

Searchers found some of Lahaina’s most vulnerable, including children, among the victims. Gov. Josh Green said this week that teams found a family of four killed in a charred car and the remains of seven family members inside a burned-down house.

Kimberly Buen was awaiting word Wednesday of her father, Maurice “Shadow” Buen, a retired sport fisherman who lived in an assisted-living facility that was destroyed.

The 79-year-old was blind in one eye, partially blind in the other and used a walker or an electric scooter to get around. In recent weeks he also had swollen feet.

“For him, there is no moving quickly,” Buen said. The stories from survivors who fled the fast-moving flames terrified her.

“If able-bodied people were having to run and jump into the ocean, I can only imagine what’s happened to the assisted living and the lower income and the elderly people that didn’t have warning, you know, or have any resources to get out,” she said.

READ: Hawaii’s governor warns that scores more people could be found dead following wildfires on Maui

Destroyed homes and cars are shown, Sunday, August 13, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Bill Seidl, 75, lived in the same complex. His daughter, Cassie Seidl, of Valencia, California, said her father knocked on doors before escaping.

“I think people were assuming it was just another brushfire,” she said. “I don’t think people realized, and they were not warned.”

Seidl said her father is now camping on a friend’s property in Wailuku.

On Tuesday, the county released the names of two victims: Lahaina residents Robert Dyckman, 74, and Buddy Jantoc, 79. They were the first of five who have been identified. Maui Police Chief John Pelletier renewed an appeal for families missing relatives to provide DNA samples.

READ: Hawaii fire death toll nears 100, and anger grows

Sacred Hearts School in Lahaina was destroyed, and Principal Tonata Lolesio said lessons would resume in the coming weeks at another Catholic school. She said it was important for the students to be with their friends, teachers and books, and not constantly thinking about the tragedy.

“I’m hoping to at least try to get some normalcy or get them in a room where they can continue to learn or just be in another environment where they can take their minds off of that,” she said.

None of the roughly 3,000 public school students in Lahaina were in classes last Tuesday when the fires started. The education department had closed several West Maui campuses because of dangerously high winds and many students stayed home while their parents worked, according to survivors’ accounts.

Communication on Maui remained difficult Wednesday. Some people walked periodically to a seawall, where phone connections were strongest, to make calls. Flying low off the coast, a single-prop airplane used a loudspeaker to blare information about where to find water and supplies.

READ: ‘Nobody told us jack’: Hawaii fire victims say no warnings

Thousands of displaced residents were staying in shelters, hotel rooms and Airbnb units, or with friends. The power company restored electricity to over 10,000 customers but around 2,000 homes and businesses still had none Tuesday night, Maui County wrote.

The cause of the wildfires, already the deadliest in the US in more than a century, was under investigation. Green has warned that scores more bodies could be found.

The Lahaina fire caused about $3.2 billion in insured property losses, according to Karen Clark & Company, a prominent disaster and risk modeling company. It said more than 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed by flames, with about 3,000 damaged by fire, smoke or both.

READ: Maui’s displaced grow restless as search for fire victims drags on

The governor said Wednesday that he has instructed the state’s attorney general to institute a moratorium on land transactions in the Lahaina area. Green said he has heard of people he described as not even in real estate reaching out to ask about purchasing land owned by people in the disaster area.

“My intention from start to finish is to make sure that no one is victimized from a land grab,” he said.

John Allen and his daughter surveyed an ash-gray landscape once festooned with colorful orchids and plumerias from a hill above the Lahaina fire zone. His daughter wept as she pointed to the coffee shop where she used to work, and the places they used to live.

Allen moved to Maui two years ago after leaving Oakland, California, where he witnessed a destructive wildfire race up hillsides in 1991.

“No one realizes how quickly fires move,” Allen said.