Maui officials defend decision not to sound sirens during wildfire

LAHAINA, Hawaii, Aug 16 (Reuters) – Maui’s emergency management chief on Wednesday defended his agency’s decision not to sound sirens during last week’s deadly wildfire amid questions whether doing so could have saved lives.

Herman Andaya, administrator of the Maui County Emergency Management Agency, said sirens in Hawaii are used to alert people to tsunamis. Using it during the fire could have led people to evacuate towards danger, he told reporters.

The August 8 grassland fire raced down the base of a volcano jutting into the resort town of Lahaina, killing at least 110 people and destroying or damaging some 2,200 buildings.

“The public is trained to seek higher ground in case the siren sounds,” Andaya said during a news conference, which was tense at times as reporters questioned the government’s response to the fire.

“If we had sounded the siren that night, we fear that people would have gone to mauka (to the mountainside) and if that was the case, they would have gone to the fire,” Andaya said.

Instead, Maui relied on two different alert systems, one that sent text messages to phones and another that broadcast emergency messages on TV and radio, Andaya said.

Because the sirens are located primarily on the waterfront, they would have been useless to people on higher ground, he said.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green also defended the decision not to sound the sirens. Green ordered the state attorney general to conduct a thorough review of the emergency response that would bring in outside investigators and experts, clarifying Wednesday that the review is “not a criminal investigation in any way.”

“The most important thing we can do right now is learn how to stay safer in the future,” Green said.

In other developments:

— US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden travel to hawaii Monday to survey the devastation and meet with first responders, survivors and federal, state and local officials, the White House said in a statement.

— Authorities on Wednesday reopened a main road through the city for the first time in days, in response to the frustration of residents. The highway, which bypasses the charred coastline and the city center, was previously closed to all but residents of the surrounding area, lifeguards and people working at local businesses.

— Hundreds of people are still missing. Twenty cadaver dogs they have led teams in a block-by-block search that has covered 38% of the disaster area as of Wednesday. The number of dogs would soon double to 40, Green said at Wednesday’s news conference, where he also announced the death toll had risen to 110.

— Identification of remains has been slow, in part due to the intensity of the fire. Maui County released the first two names Tuesday: Robert Dyckman, 74, and Buddy Jantoc, 79, both of Lahaina. Three other people have been identified, but their names have been withheld until the family is notified. The other remains await identification, Maui County said.

— As officials work to identify the dead, stories from loved ones have surfaced about those injured or killed in the flames. Laurie Allen suffered burns over 70% of her body when the car she was escaping in was blocked by a fallen tree, forcing her to flee across a burning field, according to a GoFundMe post from the her family. She has burns to the bone in places, but doctors hope she will partially regain the use of her arms, the post says.

“The Burn Team has expressed more than once that she shouldn’t be alive!” wrote a relative on the page. Allen is now at a burn center on Oahu, according to the fundraising post.

— The incongruous sight of tourists enjoying Maui’s tropical beaches as search and rescue teams scour building ruins and waters for victims of the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century ha outraged some neighbors.

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