More than 2,200 homes and businesses – structures reduced to ashen piles in the angular plots on which they once stood; family cars and work vehicles, now hollowed out metallic shells packed in the streets; even boats that were caught in the storm of embers.
While on vacation just 5 miles outside of Lahaina, disaster struck, forcing Joe and his wife to evacuate. Now back home in the desert, they are left trying to piece together what remains of the Maui they once knew.
When Hawaii officials released a report last year ranking the natural disasters most likely to threaten state residents, tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic hazards featured prominently. Near the bottom of a color-coded chart, the state emergency management agency described the risk of wildfires to human life with a single word: “low.”
Search and rescue personnel from Riverside County will be among others statewide deploying to the Hawaiian Islands as part of the disaster response to the wildfires that have devastated parts of Maui, officials announced Thursday.
