Current:Home > Markets‘Ash and debris': Journalist covering Maui fires surveys destruction of once-vibrant Hawaii town-Angel Dreamer Wealth Society D1 Reviews & Insights
‘Ash and debris': Journalist covering Maui fires surveys destruction of once-vibrant Hawaii town
View Date:2024-12-23 20:05:43
LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — I’ve seen my share of a wildfire’s destruction on a community, but in more than eight years of covering these disasters as a video and photojournalist, the scene over Hawaii was one of the worst.
Based in Las Vegas, I’m used to being dispatched to wildfires in other places. I flew to Hawaii on Wednesday, and by Thursday morning, I was in a helicopter flying over Lahaina, a normally vibrant west Maui town that draws visitors from all over the world. What struck me the most was the lack of color of the scorched earth sandwiched between glistening blue ocean and deep green-brown mountains in the distance.
No plants or trappings of island life. Just gray.
Street after street after street was nothing but rubble and foundation. Ash and debris.
It was so one-dimensional that it was hard to imagine the scenic town that was once here. King Kamehameha III Elementary School was decimated, a mess of collapsed steel. There was a neighborhood near the water that was completely gone — not a single structure remained.
I couldn’t see any active flames amid pockets of wispy smoke.
One sight made me worried and provided a grim clue of the chaos of approaching fire: Charred vehicles in the road along Front Street. They weren’t parked on the side of the road. Were drivers actively trying to flee and couldn’t? What happened to them?
I’m also a former wildland firefighter. I observed that the area of fire out in the trees and brush seemed very small compared to the amount of the town that was burned. What seemed to be a large majority of the fire was in the town itself. I’m used to seeing something like a 300,000 acre-fire (121,400 hectare-fire) burning down a little town. But this looked to me like a small wildland fire that exploded as it hit homes and businesses.
The fire’s reach extended to the ocean. I could see burned ships out in the water, which made me ponder the force of ember-carrying winds.
From above, I also didn’t expect to see people. Here and there, people were walking around, seeming to begin assessing the devastation.
Now that officials say the Lahaina fire is 80% contained, perhaps we’ll start to see that more than ash gray remains.
___
Associated Press reporter Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
veryGood! (18589)
Related
- Ford agrees to pay up to $165 million penalty to US government for moving too slowly on recalls
- Bankman-Fried’s trial exposed crypto fraud but Congress has not been eager to regulate the industry
- Her daughter was killed in the Robb Elementary shooting. Now she’s running for mayor of Uvalde
- Texas Rangers and their fans celebrate World Series title with parade in Arlington
- Charles Hanover: A Summary of the UK Stock Market in 2023
- Rwanda announces visa-free travel for all Africans as continent opens up to free movement of people
- Taliban appeal to Afghan private sector to help those fleeing Pakistan’s mass deportation drive
- Matthew Perry Laid to Rest at Private Funeral Attended by Friends Cast
- Deion Sanders addresses trash thrown at team during Colorado's big win at Texas Tech
- Ken Mattingly, Apollo 16 astronaut who orbited the moon, dies at 87
Ranking
- Bull doge! Dogecoin soars as Trump announces a government efficiency group nicknamed DOGE
- FTC Chair Lina Khan on Antitrust in the age of Amazon
- Justice Department launches civil rights probes into South Carolina jails after at least 14 inmate deaths
- Maleesa Mooney Case: Autopsy Reveals Model Was Not Pregnant at Time of Death
- U.S.-Mexico water agreement might bring relief to parched South Texas
- Head of China’s state-backed Catholic church to visit Hong Kong amid strained Sino-Vatican relations
- The Trump-DeSantis rivalry grows more personal and crude as the GOP candidates head to Florida
- A planted bomb targeting police kills 5 and wounds 20 at a bus stop in northwest Pakistan
Recommendation
-
GreenBox Systems will spend $144 million to build an automated warehouse in Georgia
-
Taliban appeal to Afghan private sector to help those fleeing Pakistan’s mass deportation drive
-
Beloved Russian singer who criticized Ukraine war returns home. The church calls for her apology
-
NASA spacecraft discovers tiny moon around asteroid during close flyby
-
Kyle Richards Swears This Holiday Candle Is the Best Scent Ever and She Uses It All Year
-
Serbian police arrest 7 people smugglers and find over 700 migrants in raids after a deadly shooting
-
Israel’s encirclement of Gaza City tightens as top US diplomat arrives to push for humanitarian aid
-
Head of China’s state-backed Catholic church to visit Hong Kong amid strained Sino-Vatican relations