Maui update. South Maui resorts (Lahaina is West Maui) NEED visitors. Furloughs and layoffs starting because people think the whole island is closed. It is not. If you are planning a trip to Wailea or Kihei, don’t cancel. If you want to come to Hawaii pls consider South Maui.
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) August 24, 2023
When my Administration says we'll be with Maui for as long as recovery takes, we mean it. pic.twitter.com/13dyrtI8VB
— President Biden (@POTUS) August 23, 2023
FYI: Maui is open to visitors & workers & small businesses need you to come. West Maui is closed to visitors through Oct. 17 but as @GovJoshGreenMD notes, the rest of Maui is safe.https://t.co/pmanqw8Km0
— HawaiiDelilah™ ?? #MauiStrong (@HawaiiDelilah) August 25, 2023
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green has basically declared YIMBY martial law. His emergency order suspends local zoning, environmental review, and more, and sets up a special working group to give expedited approval to individual housing projects https://t.co/3MJ4bKQCy5
— Christian Britschgi (@christianbrits) August 23, 2023
BREAKING: Maui County sued Hawaiian Electric Company over the fires that devastated Lahaina and killed at least 115 people, saying the utility negligently failed to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions. https://t.co/pz6qHcwoBG
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 24, 2023
Maui has disclosed a verified list, assembled by the FBI, of 388 individuals that have not located following the Lahaina fire. Maui Police is seeking assistance from the public to identify people on the list who are known to be safe.https://t.co/65mPubLsEB
— HawaiiDelilah™ ?? #MauiStrong (@HawaiiDelilah) August 25, 2023
On The Road – arrieve – Peru, Part 6: Ollantaytambo
Baud
Thanks, AL.
I’ve only been Maui once and didn’t make it to the western part of the island, but I really liked the island.
Betty Cracker
I don’t envy the task of whoever is in charge (the gov?) of figuring out the ideal tourism : recovery balance for Maui.
In 2004, Florida got hit by four hurricanes. If you saw stories about the destruction on the news, it would be easy to think the whole state was a wreck. But the vast majority of the state, including the area with theme parks, experienced no effects at all or relatively minor damage and was quickly back to normal. Tourism took a hit anyway.
Seems like Hawaii’s distance from the mainland would make finding the balance more difficult. In Maui’s case, I assume it will be harder to transport the material needed to recover and maybe harder to persuade tourists to return since it’s a long, expensive trip.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: Blech. At least this should be the last of the 100 degree days. For now anyway.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Yesterday, I met a new neighbor who’d moved here from Punta Gorda, Florida, where they’d lived full-time for years. Every reason she gave for moving here was climate related. They’d had terrible heat in the summer, and their third floor condo had been damaged in a hurricane off the Gulf. It was sort of amazing to see climate migration come to life.
mrmoshpotato
@rikyrah: How was getting home from work yesterday?
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Please, no one send Dump this headline (link)
He’s too fragile he won’t be able to take it
oldster
Sweet jeebus. 115 dead and 388 unaccounted for.
That 388 will have some mistakes and some who got out early and some who don’t want to be found.
But it’s going to have a fair number of additional deaths. This is a huge death-toll.
lowtechcyclist
Both times my wife and I visited Maui, we stayed in south Maui (Wailea/Kehei). There are a lot of beaches in that part of the island, and they’re great. I remember a good selection of restaurants as well. So if you wanted to go to Maui, don’t stay away, by all means take Sen. Schatz’ advice and go to South Maui.
Anyway
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Reverse migration of retired folk too.
Soprano2
I got an e-mail from Maui Cat Cafe, asking for donations because they’re taking in the surplus of adoptable cats from the Maui Humane Society so that they will have room for the influx of lost and injured cats. We went there last October when we were in Maui – it’s a pretty cool place. Here’s a link to their web site https://catcafemaui.com/ and here’s a link to donate if you’re so inclined https://mauicatrescue.org/donate/
Soprano2
@oldster: My guess is quite a few of those are homeless people. There are lots of homeless people on Maui because housing is so expensive.
Ithink
@OzarkHillbilly: We here in Texas are NOWHERE near the end of triple digit days of heat sadly! Our Fall & Winter seasons should therefore be …interestingly brutal!
Ithink
@oldster: Considering my first visit to Hawaii was this very island for two weeks with Mom literally 23 years ago to this month, it’s just too much to bear hearing about any of these wonderful, selfless local individuals being subject to such a horrific and unexpected death, let alone being forcibly homeless and unemployed for the foreseeable future. I’ll keep all the the thoughts, prayers and other resources I can keep going their way whenever I can muster such.
MazeDancer
Anyone who has the time, health, and money ought to consider it their civic duty to visit South Maui.
Wish I could.
emmyelle
Mr. Elle and I are celebratig our 25th this year and have a trip to Maui booked. After much consideration and waiting for travel guidance, we have decided to go as planned. We are mostly in South Maui, but did have a few days booked in Ka’anapali. We decided to stay in South Maui. If Ka’anapali is open for visitors when we go (late October) we will make sure to go and spend some $$ in restaurants and shops. But we did not want to risk being in the way if things dont go as planned.
We are also looking for opportunities to do some volunteer work while we are there. I’ve contacted a local church and we are following various organizations. Happy to take suggestions. We are able-bodied and fit for our ages, but we would be most useful at less strenuous activities.
emmyelle
@lowtechcyclist: I love South Maui. We will be there in late October. Beautiful beaches and great restaurants, coffee shops, and food trucks. Because the island is small, Kihei is a great place to start and end day trips to anywhere. It’s a quick drive from the airport, which is nice when you are coming in from the east coast and landing at what is like 2AM EST. Maalea Harbor is very close, and with the complete destruction of Lahaina Harbor, this is the place to get on a boat.
Betty Cracker
@emmyelle: Kudos to your willingness to do volunteer work on vacation — and an early happy anniversary to you! We celebrated our 26th a few months back. Doesn’t seem possible!
emmyelle
@Betty Cracker: Thanks! Yeah, volunteering seems like the right thing to do, and the only thing that will help me feel ok about drinking Bloody Marys by the pool in a place where there has been so much recent suffering.
gwangung
It’s also a bitch to find the tourism balance when it’s a root cause of a lot of the income disparity and resource mismanagement on the islands.
frosty
@emmyelle: We took a three-island trip to Hawaii with our grown sons in July. On Maui, our travel agent booked us into a resort in Ka’anapali. If it turns out you can’t get there I don’t think it’s a big loss. We mostly got our meals from food trucks and the places we wanted to see were two hours away on the east side or center, which made it an inconvenient place to stay: Road to Hana, Halaekea National Park, the Lavender Farm.
We didn’t get to Lahaina.
emmyelle
@frosty: Thanks! Lahaina was a delightful, bustling town. We had been to Ka’anapali for the day on a previous trip, so will be happy to do another day trip if that is possible. But yes Kihei is a much more convenient place to stay for a longer trip.
NotMax
Hundreds of empty rental cars now parked idle on empty lots outside the perimeter of the airport.
Other stuff:
Feathers
@gwangung: This. You’ve got the tourism board and the government saying Please come. Meanwhile, activists and allies are online harassing anyone posting photos of Hawaiian travel.
Paul Begala's Pink Tie
Our family was actually there on our annual vacation during the fires. On the Tuesday morning (8/8), my husband took our 3 kids + my daughter’s friend to hike I’ao Valley; power was already out because of the winds. I opted out, since I’d been on that excursion several times & wanted to exercise and read a book by the pool. Well… they couldn’t get back through & ended up sleeping in the car by the side of the road before finding a place to stay in Kihei/Wailea. I was trapped in the southernmost part of Kaanapali, about 2 miles from Lahaina. Watching the town burn & the sky turn orange from the lanai was surreal and terrifying. I wasn’t able to get out on an evacuation shuttle (with 6 people’s stuff) until Friday morning. We drove through the northern part of the town and there are no words. The burned-out cars were most shocking to me — lines of cars along the roads where the flames were faster than the traffic trying to leave.
We stayed for several more days — as originally planned/booked — in Wailea, in part because so many tourists didn’t have anywhere to go and were trying to get through the little airport. It’s true that you would never know by the normal state of things in South Maui that anything happened. So hard to know what to do except try to be sensitive & empathetic… we weren’t sure if our presence was welcome. If the state and local officials are asking for visitors to keep their South Maui plans for the sake of the local economy, I’m glad we stayed.
wmd
Disaster animal rescue is being denied access according to this petition. Assert – the disaster animal rescue organization that helped during our fires 3 years ago said they were going to Maui on August 16, which is the date the petition says access was denied.
Assert has been doing great work around the world – California, Kentucky, Turkey, Ukraine.
SC54HI
@Soprano2: The most recent point-in-time census of the homeless on Maui, done in January 2023, found 113 unhoused persons in the Lahaina area. This recent news article adds some context.
GoBlueInOak
@Feathers: Its basically that. There’s a contingent of the Twitter/TikTok Left – both native Hawaiians and non – that well before the fires was engaged in perfomative moralizing against anyone traveling to Hawaii and that traveling to Hawaii was basically “colonizing”. They’ve just gotten even louder after the fires, which they are just using as an excuse to further harass people.
Its telling you don’t see any of these nimrods saying you shouldn’t travel to the other 49 states, which are also on stolen, colonized land.
Emmyelle
@Paul Begala’s Pink Tie: may you have only happiness for the rest of your days. Thanks for sharing this