Hawaii governor says focus is on

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said operations Saturday would focus on “the loss of life” as he toured the devastation on Lahaina’s beloved Front Street with representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Most of our focus will be on humans today,” he said.

FEMA said the agency has been spray-painting cars and buildings on Front Street with an “X” to indicate they had received an initial check, but that there could still be human remains inside. When crews do another pass through, if they find remains, they will add the letters “HR” next to the “X.”

As the death toll from the fires on the island rises, it’s unclear how morgues will be able to accommodate the number of victims considering there is just one hospital and three mortuaries.

The number of deaths has risen to 80, according to a statement by Maui County on Friday. The number of confirmed fatalities in the 9 p.m. announcement increased from the previous figure of 67.

The fire is the deadliest in the U.S. since the 2018 Camp Fire in California, which killed at least 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise.

Beyond the confirmed deaths in Maui, hundreds of other people remain unaccounted for.

Mike Rice has been looking for friends on the island but has yet to hear from them. It’s too early to give up hope, he said, but he has not discounted possibility that they might have perished along with scores of others.

None of them had cell phones, he said, making his search for three members of the Hernandez clan all the more challenging.

“I think they could have very well made it out,” said Rice, who now lives in California. “They may or may not have made it, I’m not going to sit around with a sense of impending doom waiting to find out.”

Emergency managers in Maui were still assessing the scope of the damage Saturday in the center of Lahaina and searching for places to house people displaced from their homes.

One possibility was to put some of the survivors and disaster responders at the Sheraton Hotel, with 200 rooms available there, FEMA said in a briefing Saturday morning. But the need for shelter was much higher, estimated to be as many as 4,500 people, according to the assessment posted by FEMA and the University of Hawaii’s Pacific Disaster Center.

At least 2,207 structures were estimated to have been damaged or destroyed in the wildfires, according to preliminary numbers from the Pacific Disaster Center, which also estimated that rebuilding the island would cost a projected $5.5 billion. 

There also was new information Saturday about the damage to boats, with nine confirmed to have sunk in Lahaina Harbor according to sonar.

Some 30 cell towers were still offline Saturday, and power outages are expected to last several weeks in west Maui.

Some residents in Lahaina have expressed frustration about having difficulty accessing their homes amid road closures and police checkpoints on the western side of the island.

On the south end of Front Street on Saturday morning, one resident walked barefoot carrying a laptop and a passport, asking how to get to the nearest shelter. Another person, riding his bicycle, took stock of the damage at the harbor, where he said his boat caught fire and sank.

One fire engine and a few construction trucks were seen driving through the neighborhood, but it remained eerily devoid of human and official government activity.

The cause of the fires remains unknown. As the Lahaina fire broke out Tuesday, it was accompanied by chaos and confusion. Emergency sirens weren’t activated on the island. Resident also said the power was cut off, which gave them no access to television or radio. They also said they received no text alerts. Those in town only fled when the flames were on their heels.

Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez announced Friday that her agency would conduct a “comprehensive review of critical decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during, and after the wildfires.”