Towering flames spread to wind-whipped palm trees while consuming a building between Wainee Street and Front Street at the height of the fire on Aug. 8 in Lahaina. On Wednesday, the head of the Maui Emergency Management Agency defended the county’s decision not to sound the all-hazards outdoor warning system, saying it’s not typically used for fires. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
The head of the Maui Emergency Management Agency defended the decision to not sound the outdoor all-hazard siren system as the Lahaina fire spread across town, saying it’s typically used for tsunamis and could have sent people mauka toward the blaze.
“The sirens … are used primarily for tsunamis. And that’s the reason why many of them are found, almost all of them are found, on the coastline,” MEMA Administrator Herman Andaya said Wednesday. “The public is trained to seek higher ground in the event that the siren is sounded. … Having sounded the siren that night, we’re afraid that people would have gone mauka, and if that was the case, then they would’ve gone into the fire.”
Andaya, making his first appearance at a news conference since the fires broke out last week, defended the county’s actions and his qualifications for the position as the island continues to recover from a devastating series of fires in Lahaina and Upcountry that have killed at least 111, destroyed thousands of structures and burned thousands of acres.
Residents have described harrowing escapes and credited neighbors and friends with coming to their rescue as cell service failed.
Sione Finau said if it wasn’t for a friend banging on his door to get out, he probably wouldn’t be alive.
When his friend who lived along Lahainaluna Road came to tell him his house burned down, Finau couldn’t believe it. But by the time his friend arrived at his home above Wahikuli Terrace Park, the flames were already there.
“We didn’t get any warning either,” he said Wednesday, recalling that day he had to quickly escape his Lahaina neighborhood with no notice.
“No one was there for help nobody. Everyone was left on their own,” he added.
Andaya said Wednesday that Maui County’s Emergency Operations Center was partially activated around 9 p.m. Aug. 7 because of fires out in Kula. After a fire broke out in Lahaina the next morning and a flare-up spurred the much larger blaze later in the afternoon, the center went into full activation. Andaya said officials in the center “were in constant communications with the field,” and it quickly became clear how dire the situation was.
“I was not there that night,” Andaya said. “I was on Oahu attending a conference, but what I was told by my staff that they received from the battalion chief that was in the EOC, that their crews were being overrun. And so at that point we sent out the evacuation notices.”
The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s website says the all-hazard siren system can be used for “both natural and human-caused events; including tsunamis, hurricanes, dam breaches, flooding, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, terrorist threats, hazardous material incidents and more.”
But Andaya said the system isn’t typically used for wildland fires in Hawaii. He said Maui County’s internal protocol is to use wireless emergency alerts via text message (also referred to as “WEA” by officials) or the emergency alert system through TV and radio (also known as “EAS”).
When asked at the news conference if he regretted not sounding the siren, Andaya said, “I do not.”
He brought up the concern of the emergency siren sending people fleeing mauka, pointing to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s website that instructs people in low-lying areas near near the coastline to “evacuate to high grounds, inland, or vertically to the 4th floor and higher of a concrete building.” He said that because there are no sirens mauka, where the fire was spreading, “even if we sounded the siren, it would not have saved those people on the mountainside.”
“We will review the process, but once again, as I’ve said, most of our sirens are on the coastline,” he said. “So if there is a fire occurring inland, the sirens will be of no use. You have to also remember that that day in Lahaina, it’s an outdoor siren, so a lot of people who are indoors, with air conditioning on, whatever the case may be, they’re not going to hear the siren. Plus the winds were gusty and everything. I heard it was very loud. And so they wouldn’t have heard the sirens. And so we believed the most effective way of getting the message out to the public was through WEA and EAS. And that’s the method we used.”
Andaya also defended his record when asked about his qualifications, saying that he had 11 years of experience as a deputy housing director and mayor’s chief of staff, during which he often reported to the Emergency Operations Center. He added that he went through training on numerous occasions and that he was interviewed, vetted and chosen for his current position by “seasoned emergency managers.”
The state Attorney General’s Office is conducting a review of the decision-making and policies that went into the fire response on Maui and Hawaii island. Gov. Josh Green said Wednesday that it is “not a criminal investigation in any way.”
“We’re performing a comprehensive review to find out what the safest and most effective science-based way it is to protect people,” Green said during the news conference. “There are a lot of different geographies across our country. Some use sirens. Some don’t.”
He said that when he first moved to Hawaii island, he was told to expect a tsunami when hearing the warning siren.
However, he said the fires would prompt “a lot of changes,” including getting power lines underground, which the state plans to “invest very heavily on” in recovery, as well as more satellite capacity across the state.
“Obviously the review is important. We always want to study things,” Green said. “Our administration has been relatively new and we’re reviewing reports. Some said that we had high risk. Others said we have very low risks. It’s obvious that catastrophe can occur.”
* Managing Editor Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com. Staff Writer Melissa Tanji contributed to this report.
- Towering flames spread to wind-whipped palm trees while consuming a building between Wainee Street and Front Street at the height of the fire on Aug. 8 in Lahaina. On Wednesday, the head of the Maui Emergency Management Agency defended the county’s decision not to sound the all-hazards outdoor warning system, saying it’s not typically used for fires. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo
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