Hawaii wildfire: ‘It feels like a bomb has been dropped’ say residents returning to aftermath
It was the first time the people of Lahaina had been allowed to return since wildfires laid ruin to their town three days ago.
A queue of cars, hours long, waited at the police checkpoint to show their documents.
Once cleared, they travelled the winding highway, under a tunnel cutting through the lush west Maui mountains and into town. Some were on mopeds, others in the back of pick-up trucks, wind whipping as they passed a series of picture postcard beaches.
They had been told to brace themselves for the scale of the devastation. But for many, what awaited them on arrival was even worse than they expected.
Front Street had been the beating heart of Lahaina, full of cafes selling shaved ice, hip bars and well regarded restaurants. But it wasn’t just a tourist town, it was an idyll for 13,000 locals.
Burnt out cars are everywhere
Ryan Nakagowa has lived here his whole life and returns with his family to see the damage on the ground. They’re wearing masks to protect themselves from the acrid smoke filling the air. Much of the wreckage is still smouldering.
“It really feels like a bomb has been dropped,” he says, “I feel like if you pinched me right now and I would wake up, probably better off. But this is the reality, unfortunately.”
The fires began on Tuesday. Pic:AP
Mr Nakagowa is wrestling with how to tell his five-year-old daughter that her school has burned down.
Meanwhile, his sister Natalie is reminiscing.
Read more:
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There are toxic fumes in the air after the fire
“Everyone who came here, it was their happy place,” she says, “And now everything we know is gone. I can’t go to the gelato shop anymore.
“I can’t go to the bars we used to go to. There was bingo nights and trivia nights and such a big sense of community. Although we still have that sense of community, it’s not going to be the same for a while.”
There is little joy to be found in the ruins but Natalie tries. “Want to see what the top-rated trip advisor restaurant in Hawaii looks like?” she asks, pointing to a pile of twisted metal.
A bar owned by rocker Mick Fleetwood, of Fleetwood Mac, is still standing but has been torched, charcoal black on the outside and hollowed inside.
The fire that obliterated Lahaina was hot enough to turn metal into molten silver lava which now decorates the roads. In the ruins of what was the art gallery, a statue of an elephant and a model whale have survived.
The alerts did not go off when the fire started
‘Everything we had in the past is gone’
Down the street, sisters Christie Gagala and Abigail Ang are sifting through the remains of a place they have called home for almost two decades. Their dad built it and they lived here with 16 family members. They sob as they realise there is little to be retrieved.
“We lost everything,” says Christie, “thank God we still have each other and we’re all alive and safe and accounted for. We’re the only things we have now, because everything that we had in the past is gone.”
The US Army goes from house to house, searching the debris, marking the pavement with a spray painted orange cross once a search in completed.
Questions are mounting for authorities about their response to the wildfires. There is an outdoor emergency alert system on Maui, designed for circumstances like this but, for whatever reason, it was not activated on Tuesday afternoon.
It will cost billions to rebuild the town
“I hear there were no sirens that went off,” says Charles Offenbach, a local who lost his home in the fire, “We just had to know that ourselves. It was fight or flight with no warning whatsoever. And it spread in the matter of minutes.”
Some ran out of time. Near the harbour, the scene is apocalyptic. The shells of dozens of burnt out cars are moody against the sparkling, turquoise ocean. The occupants, it seems, abandoned their vehicles and jumped into the sea when they were unable to escape the flames by road.
Restaurants have been destroyed
Annelise Cochran was in the water for six hours with her neighbour, Edna. Burns from the flames cover her face.
“We were going in and out of consciousness,” she says, “we were hallucinating and holding hands and telling each other to wake up. Every once in a while we would get out of the water or go back up towards the fire just to warm our bodies.”
She, too, thinks the authorities were ill prepared. “There was no warning,” she says, “I was not told a single thing, I got no message, no alarm, nobody told me my house would be burned down or that my friends will be dying in front of me. And I understand that there’s no power, but that’s what an emergency system is for.”
As the number of dead rises by the day, the sense of loss swells and so too does the scrutiny of the response.
Former US vice president Dick Cheney has died from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family has said.
In a statement, his family said the 84-year-old was surrounded by his wife Lynne, daughters Liz and Mary, and other family members.
The Republican was one of the most polarising vice presidents in US history under George W Bush from 2001 to 2009, and was a leading advocate of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Dick Cheney with George W Bush. Pic: Reuters
In later life, he became a target of Donald Trump, especially after his daughter, Liz Cheney, became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Mr Trump’s actions surrounding the January 6 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Mr Cheney said in a TV advert for his daughter.
“He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”
Dick Cheney looks on as his daughter Liz Cheney takes the oath of office in 2017. Pic: AP
Last year he said he was voting for Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, to be president against Mr Trump.
Mr Cheney survived five heart attacks and declared in 2013 he woke up each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day”.
Pic: Reuters
His family’s statement said: “For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States.
“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing.
“We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country.
“And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”
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US
Zohran Mamdani: ‘Trump’s worst nightmare’ could be about to show how to take the fight to the president
Zohran Mamdani calls himself “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare”. They are the words of a man living the dream.
It’s because the 34-year-old is the headline act in Tuesday’s referendum on Trump 2.0. A statement night in US politics, as Americans – some, at least – deliver a verdict on what they’ve seen so far.
Of four electoral contests across the US – including in California, New Jersey and Virginia – the race to be New York mayor is the most compulsive and consequential.
The polls have Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, as the frontrunner. If he wins, it would signify big change in the Big Apple.
Read more: Who is Zohran Mamdani?
Pics: AP
Born in Uganda to Indian parents (he moved to the US aged seven), Mamdani would become New York’s first Muslim mayor.
He is a democratic socialist whose supporters will see victory as laying down a template for taking on Trump, even if the party’s old guard is sceptical.
An effective campaign has focused on the costs and quality of life in New York, promising universal childcare, a rent freeze, free bus travel and grocery shops run by the city.
Progressives Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez have endorsed Mamdani. Pic: Andrea Renault/STAR MAX/IPx/AP
So why is he controversial?
The message has resonated with New Yorkers squeezed on affordability, but his payment plan is open to question.
Mamdani plans to raise $9bn by raising taxes on the wealthy and on corporations, but he would face a struggle to gain the necessary consent of the New York State legislature and governor.
Mamdani’s politics are pegged to the “progressive” left wing of his party, and his campaign success plays into the Democrats’ quandary around a longer-term comeback strategy.
The politics that succeed in New York don’t necessarily resonate nationwide, and a party establishment has been reluctant to embrace Mamdani.
Democrat Chuck Schumer, Senate minority leader, has declined to endorse him at all.
Party management aside, he won’t have been impressed when Mamdani was arrested outside Schumer’s Brooklyn home as part of a 2023 protest calling for a ceasefire following Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel.
Mamdani has been a staunch critic of Israel and, in the past, has advocated defunding the police, decriminalising prostitution and closing New York City jails.
Mamdani was at the White House to announce a hunger strike demanding a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Gaza in November 2023. Pic: AP
His background and Islamic faith are threaded through opposition attacks. He has been criticised for refusing to denounce the phrase “globalise the intifada”, used by pro-Palestinian activists.
Subsequently, he said he would “discourage” the term and would combat antisemitism through actions as well as words.
It hasn’t stopped his Republican rival, Curtis Sliwa, claiming Mamdani supported “global jihad”.
Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, has labelled him “the most divisive candidate I have ever experienced in New York”.
Andrew Cuomo. Pic: AP
Trump gives Cuomo an endorsement – of sorts
Cuomo, the former New York governor who resigned over sexual harassment allegations, is Mamdani’s closest contender who has received support – of sorts – from Trump.
The president, who falsely labels Mamdani a communist, said on Truth Social on the eve of the election: “Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice.
“You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”
At a rally the same night, Mamdani fired back to say: “The MAGA movement’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo is reflective of Donald Trump’s understanding that this would be the best mayor for him.
“Not the best mayor for New York City, not the best mayor for New Yorkers, but the best mayor for Donald Trump and his administration.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The Republican spin on the prospect of a Mamdani victory is that it would reflect a move towards radical extremism by the Democratic Party.
Trump has even suggested he may withhold federal funds from New York if Mamdani wins.
In time, Democrats would need to interpret and apply the lessons of a Mamdani victory. But more than anything else, they need a win to feel a pulse in a party undergoing an identity crisis.
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During the primaries, Mamdani held a news conference outside Cuomo’s apartment in March. Pic: zz/Andrea Renault/STAR MAX/IPx
One battle after another
The same applies to Tuesday contests for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, fascinating in terms of the vote winners and vote breakdown.
What will be the verdict, nine months in, of people who turned to Trump at the last election? Will he hold onto the Latino vote, given his immigration policy, ICE raids, and other orders?
In California, Tuesday sees a redistricting vote to counter Republican gerrymandering elsewhere. If backed by the public, the plan will increase the number of winnable Democratic seats in the House of Representatives.
Read more: The controversial tactic both parties are using ahead of midterms
It is the initiative of California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
If he wins the day, his party will be enhanced and so will he, as the potential party nominee for president come the election in 2028.
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