A mobile refrigerated morgue has been rushed to Hawaii’s wildfire-ravaged historic town of Lahaina to keep bodies cool as the death toll on Maui hit 96 — and is only expected to rise.
Two fires have not yet been completely contained, including the one that reduced Lahaina’s neighborhoods to heaps of ash and debris, according to an update from Maui County.
Dozens of rescuers accompanied by cadaver dogs have been going door to door, scouring burnt-out homes and cars for casualties at an agonizingly slow pace, given the conditions. So far, just 3% of Lahaina – previously a town of 13,000 – had been searched.
The FBI has delivered refrigerated trucks fitted with racks to store the bodies of the deceased — and is asking people with missing family members to provide a DNA sample for identification, according to the Daily Mail.
Multiple members of several families have been among the fatalities, including tragic couple Faaso and Malui Fonua Tone, their daughter Salote Takafua and her young son, Tony Takafua, a family friend said.
Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said the fire had been so devastating that each recovered body will have to be identified through DNA testing.
Still, search efforts were expected to move “a little faster” now compared to the past few days, said Jeff Hickman, the director of public affairs for the Hawaii Department of Defense.
Hickman said on NBC’s “Today” that teams are “going street by street, block by block between cars, and soon they’ll start to enter buildings.”
The Hawaii National Guard has more than 110 personnel assisting Maui County with the search and rescue operation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also on the ground with 400 crew members and cadaver dogs.
Hickman added that with the extra help, search-and-rescue efforts are “going to start to move a little faster than they have in the past couple of days. And hopefully we bring some closure to those on Maui.”
But Hawaii officials warned that the full human and environmental toll from the blazes was not yet known — and the recovery from the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century was only just beginning.
The blaze that began decimating the centuries-old community Tuesday has destroyed nearly every building there, leaving a grid of charred rubble. The Lahaina fire has been 85% contained, according to the county, while the Upcountry fire has been 60% contained.
“There’s very little left there,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said, holding up a map of the area titled “Buildings Damaged in Maui Wildfires Lahaina Area.”
He added that “an estimated value of $5.6 billion has gone away,” indicating it is now higher.
Green said it was tough on search crews to look for victims “because they know, ultimately, they will be sharing with our people that there have been more fatalities.” He added that he expected the number of casualties to rise.
“I will tell you this: As a physician, it is a harrowing sight in Maui,” he added.
In the midst of the heartbreak and loss, there were also miraculous stories of survival, including one involving a woman and her two teenage sons who waded in the Pacific Ocean for 5 hours as flames and hurricane-force winds roared around them.
Milo Tomkinson, 13, his 19-year-old brother, Noah, and their mother were at their home in Lahaina when they noticed that the wildfire was edging toward their neighborhood.
“As we were leaving our neighborhood, we were turning left out of our neighborhood, and a fire to the left of us started on this little patch of grass, and it spread incredibly quickly, it was unbelievable,” Noah told CBS Colorado.
“It just like within a few seconds it was huge, and then it caught on someone’s house, and we saw their roof starting to catch fire,” he added. “That was crazy.”
The family of three got in their car and tried to drive to safety, but the traffic on the only open road was so heavy that they got stuck.
Faced with the terrifying prospect of burning alive in their car, the mom and sons ditched their vehicle on the road and fled on foot.
“I don’t even know if we were feeling any emotions, we were just in like panic,” Noah recalled.
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At first, the family tried to find shelter nearby, but everything around them was engulfed in flames, so as a last resort they plunged into the ocean.
“Once we got in the water, just all the wind and just all the fire, and the smog just are coming straight toward us,” Noah said.
The two boys and their mom would spend the next five hours wading in chest-to-shoulder-deep water while struggling to breathe.
As the flames began to die down and night fell, the family decided it was safe to return to dry land.
“We were up on shore, hiding our faces, and hearing sheets of metal fly near us and over us,” Noah remembered.
The family then sought refuge in a car that hadn’t burned, but Noah feared that he and his loved ones would not make it out alive because of what he described as a “blanket of smoke” all around them.
At last, the Tomkinsons spotted flashing lights from emergency vehicles far in the distance.
“Three firemen walk down, and they’re like, ‘we’re going to get you guys out of here,’ like, ‘it’s gonna be okay,'” Noah said.
The firemen walked the family to a parking lot, where they were picked up by a police officer who then took them to a shuttle bus heading to a shelter on the other side of the island. There, the survivors were reunited with their dad, David Tomkinson.
“I was, like, so relieved to be alive,” Noah said. “But I felt guilty, like, ‘What about all the people that didn’t make it, what about all the people that aren’t in getaway cars getting to safety right now?'”
Other families from Lahaina were less fortunate.
Lylas Kanemoto said four members of a family she knows were all found dead together inside a charred car: the Tones and Tafakuas.
Kanemoto was also awaiting word about the fate of her cousin.
“I’m afraid he is gone because we have not heard from him, and he would’ve found a way to contact family. We are hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst,” Kanemoto said Sunday.
Taufa Samisoni said his uncle, aunt, cousin and the cousin’s 7-year-old son also perished inside a burned car as they tried to escape the inferno that annihilated much of their town.
Even where the fire has retreated, authorities have warned that toxic byproducts may remain, including in drinking water which residents were warned not to consume.
The cause of the wildfires is still under investigation, and Gov. Green said authorities would also examine their response.
Before the blaze overwhelmed Lahaina, Maui County officials failed to activate sirens that would have warned the entire population and instead relied on social media posts.
Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a distant hurricane passing hundreds of miles away, the flames on Maui raced through parched brush — one fire searing a path as fast as a mile a minute, according to Green.
“With those kinds of winds and 1,000-degree temperatures, ultimately all the pictures that you will see will be easy to understand,” he said.
Maria Lanakila Church in Lahaina was spared from the flames that wiped out most of the surrounding community, but with search-and-recovery efforts ongoing, its members attended Mass up the road Sunday. The Bishop of Honolulu, the Rev. Clarence “Larry” Silva, presided.
Silva read a message from Pope Francis, who said he was praying for those who lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods. He also conveyed prayers for first responders.
Meanwhile, Hawaii officials urged tourists to avoid traveling to Maui as many hotels prepared to house evacuees and first responders.
Green said 500 hotel rooms will be made available for locals who have been displaced. An additional 500 rooms will be set aside for workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The state said it would work with Airbnb to make sure that rental homes can be made available for locals who lost their homes.
JP Mayoga, a cook at the Westin Maui in Kaanapali, is still making breakfast, lunch and dinner on a daily basis. But instead of serving hotel guests, he’s been feeding the roughly 200 hotel employees and their family members who have been living there since Tuesday.
“Everybody has their story, and everybody lost something. So everybody can be there for each other, and they understand what’s going on in each other’s lives,” he said of his co-workers at the hotel.
With Post wires
