Putting numbers to the Maui tragedy is like playing the lottery. One number is played and any other is played.
The dead from the devastating fire on that Hawaiian island only increase. The last count, as of this writing, was 93, according to Hawaii Gov. Josh Green.
This makes it the deadliest fire to hit the United States in over a hundred years. Gone is the record of Paradise (California), with 85 deaths in 2018.
The number of deceased may increase. Especially in the city of Lahaina, where it is reported that only a little more than 10% of the devastated area has been searched with the help of dogs. Until this Sunday, according to Green, only two of the bodies had been identified. The rest remained nameless. “We are only at the beginning of the search and identification process,” said John Pelletier, chief of the Maui police department. “No one really knows the size of all this. Do you want to go fast or do you want to do it right? We are doing the right thing,” he explained.
There is another number that raises more questions. The island has 80 sirens and none of them activated to alert the neighbors of the Apocalypse. Each siren makes a noise equivalent to that of a rock concert and can be heard within a radius of almost a kilometer. Until now, it was praised by archipelago authorities as the largest outdoor security warning siren system in the world. "I am not going to make excuses for this tragedy, but the Hawaii attorney general has already opened an investigation to review what happened to those sirens and other actions that took place," Senator Mazie Hirono said on CNN.
A 2020 report already warned that in the western part of the island, where Lahaina is, there was a high risk of forest fires.
In addition, three complaints have been filed with the Hawaii Electric Agency. They allege that the destruction could have been avoided or mitigated if the utility had removed power from the supply lines in light of the strength of the wind. The governor estimated that the physical damage amounts to about 6,000 million dollars. In that western part, in the old capital of the kingdom, some 2,200 structures were destroyed and the majority, 86%, were residential buildings. Before the fire, Hawaii had a severe housing problem amid a proliferation of hotels.
Some 1,400 people live in shelters, but there are still people who sleep in the open, under trees or on the beach. The locals, with the help of down-to-earth Hollywood stars like Jason Momoa, have a message for tourists: "Maui is not your vacation spot right now."
