the Pacific Ocean to save themselves.
The Lahaina evacuation was complicated by its coastal location next to hills, meaning there were only two ways out, at best, said Andrew Rumbach, a specialist in climate and communities at the Urban Institute in Washington.
“This is the nightmare scenario,” said Rumbach, a former urban planning professor at the University of Hawaii. “A fast-moving fire in a densely populated place with difficult communications, and not a lot of good options in terms of evacuations.”
County officials began allowing Lahaina residents back to their homes on Friday, even though much of Maui’s western side remained without power and water. But the long traffic jam on the Kuihelani Highway crawled to a halt after an accident killed a pedestrian and led officials to close the highway in both directions.
Volunteers formed human chains on Friday afternoon at Maalaea Harbor to transfer infant formula, diapers, clothes, fuel and other supplies onto boats.
Boat captains planned to sail around to the fire-affected areas and bring the supplies to the beach on jetskis, seconded from the area’s tourism industry, as the waters were choppy and docks had been damaged by the fires.
The Maui blazes are the latest wildfires that have struck this summer around the globe. Fires forced tens of thousands of people in Greece, Spain, Portugal and other parts of Europe to evacuate, while in western Canada smoke from a series of severe fires blanketed a vast swath of the U.S. Midwest and East Coast.
Source: Reuters
