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We often talk about how left-wing policies are not only dangerous but also deadly. Look no further than misguided programs like “Defund the Police,” the ghastly “bail reform” program, or the cult-like belief in climate change. All of these programs, among others, have led to death and destruction across the country. Sadly, the tragic consequences of these policies became painfully clear in Maui, where a deadly and devastating fire tore through the island, destroying nearly everything in its path. While there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding the fires and a multitude of theories, one thing we know for certain is that a climate change zealot and Hawaii official named M. Kaleo Manuel refused to release so-called “sacred” water, a decision that contributed to the deaths of over 106 people.
Manuel, who was recognized by the Obama Foundation as an Asian Pacific “Leader”, delayed the release of the water that could have helped landowners save their property due to his Marxist belief in “equity” and perhaps also due to his weird left-wing pagan views about not using water because it is “sacred” as seen in the above video. According to the Obama Foundation website, Manuel believes that “ancient wisdom and traditional ecological knowledge of native peoples will help save the Earth” and he is “passionate about elevating native and indigenous ways of knowing in all spheres of discourse and dialogue.”
It’s been widely reported that locals tried to hose down their homes with water to protect them by the fire, but their water was shut off. By time the water was finally released, it was way too late.
Honalulu Civil Beat:
With wildfires ravaging West Maui on Aug. 8, a state water official delayed the release of water that landowners wanted to help protect their property from fires. The water standoff played out over much of the day and the water didn’t come until too late.
The dispute involved the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ water resource management division and West Maui Land Co., which manages agricultural and residential subdivisions in West Maui as well as Launiupoko Irrigation Co., Launiupoko Water Co., Olowalu Water Co. and Ha’iku Town Water Association.
DLNR delayed releasing water requested by West Maui Land Co. to help prevent the spread of fire, sources familiar with the situation said.
Mr. Manuel “balked” at the requests. The Civil Beat continues:
Specifically, according to accounts of four people with knowledge of the situation, M. Kaleo Manuel, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and DLNR’s deputy director for water resource management, initially balked at West Maui Land Co.’s requests for additional water to help prevent the fire from spreading to properties managed by the company.
According to the sources, Manuel wanted West Maui Land to get permission from a taro, or kalo, farm located downstream from the company’s property. Manuel eventually released water but not until after the fire had spread. It was not clear on Monday how much damage the fire did in the interim or whether homes were damaged.
Manuel declined to be interviewed for this story. DLNR’s communications office said in an email that it was supporting the state’s emergency communications response and “unable to facilitate your inquiry at this time.”
The governor, Josh Green, hinted that the horrible decisions of Manuel, and perhaps other local officials, might even be criminal. The state attorney general is getting involved. Check out his comments as reported in the Civil Beat:
“One thing that people need to understand especially those from far away is that there’s been a great deal of water conflict on Maui for many years,” Green said. “It’s important that we’re honest about this. People have been fighting against the release of water to fight fires. I’ll leave that to you to explore.”
“We have a difficult time on Maui and other rural areas getting enough water for houses, for our people, for any response,” Green added. “But it’s important we start being honest. There are currently people still fighting in our state giving us water access to fight and prepare for fires even as more storms arise.”
Green said the state is in the midst of a “comprehensive review” by Attorney General Anne Lopez of decisions made before and during the firefighting efforts.
“There will be multiple reviews at every level,” he said.
State legislators knew this was a serious issue for West Maui and failed to act.
In 2022, two Maui senators, Gil Keith-Agaran and Lynne DeCoite, introduced a measure to push DLNR to allow fresh water to be used to fight fires and pointed to West Maui as being particularly vulnerable.
The bill noted that “in 2019, West Maui suffered from an active fire season in which wildfires scorched twenty-five thousand acres of land.” It would have required DLNR to “cooperate with the counties and reservoir owners to develop protocols and agreements for the use of reservoir waters for fire safety purposes.”
Specifically, the measure said, “The protocols and agreements shall address the emergency use of reservoir waters for prevention, control, and extinguishment of fires while taking into account the various competing uses of reservoir waters.”
The bill died without a hearing.
In this case, it turns out that “elevating native and indigenous ways of knowing” turned out to be a huge disaster. The “ancient wisdom and traditional ecological knowledge of native peoples” apparently involves not using water to stop the spread of deadly wildfires. The blatant and profound malice and negligence arising from ideological stupidity in this situation is so severe that it must be considered criminal. Officials like Mr. Manuel should be sitting in jail, reflecting on how their radical left-wing beliefs contributed to the devastation and loss of so many innocent lives.
The Maui Emergency Management Agency didn't see the sirens as a viable tool to warn Lahaina's people about the incoming blaze.
The leader of the Maui Emergency Management Agency is defending his department’s decision not to activate a siren network to warn people last week that a fast-moving fire was descending upon Lahaina.
Called an “all-hazard” system, the sirens are intended to be used for a variety of natural and human-caused events, including fires, Maui’s own website states. The four sirens in the Lahaina area are part of what Hawaii calls the “largest single integrated outdoor siren warning system for public safety in the world.”
But in practice, the system is used mainly for tsunami warnings, MEMA Administrator Herman Andaya said, and the Maui Emergency Management Agency didn’t consider them, as Civil Beat reported.
Andaya elaborated on that decision in a Tuesday interview. “We would not use sirens in a case like this,” he said. “That’s not what we normally would do. We just don’t use sirens for fires.”
Officials instead opted to activate warnings through people’s cell phones, Andaya said. At least some residents received cellphone notifications to evacuate after 4 p.m., according to the New York Times, but many did not. Electrical power and cell service was down in much of the area last Tuesday when the fires sparked and spread.
The sirens are solar-powered and can sound even when electricity is down through a satellite data signal.
In the end, many residents and visitors said they fled Lahaina after seeing or smelling smoke coming their way. But with traffic backups and multiple road closures caused by downed power lines, some died in their cars as they tried to escape. Others pushed through smoke and flames to jump over a sea wall and into the ocean. There, they endured hours of punishing winds and smoke and watched the town burn until the Coast Guard came to rescue them.
In Andaya’s view, the usefulness of the sirens is limited.
“It wouldn’t have helped if we had sounded the sirens,” he said.
More than 100 people have been confirmed dead, with the death toll expected to rise as specialized crews search through the rubble for remains. Thousands of people have lost their homes and businesses. The county’s response to the crisis is under review by the Hawaii Attorney General’s office.
Adam Weintraub, a spokesman for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said in an interview on Monday that he’s not certain sirens would’ve made a difference.
“This thing was big enough and hot enough to make its own weather, but I’m not sure that, with a wall of flames moving at 40 or 50 miles an hour that sounding a siren would’ve provided the level of advance warning that I think people think,” Weintraub said.
“We will be looking at as much data as we can get our hands on to figure out how this happened and what we could’ve done that would have improved our response and made people safe. Wildfires are going to be a bigger part of the threat picture here in Hawaii in the future.”
Messages Sent Were Not Received By All
The state’s website says the sirens blow at 121 decibels – an “uncomfortable” level comparable to a jet plane taking off, according to the American Academy of Audiology. Residents are familiar with the sounds due to monthly tests of the system.
But Andaya suggested people indoors might not have been able to hear it, particularly with the intense winds that were blowing up to 80 miles per hour.
“It’s an outdoor siren,” he said. “So if you’re in your home and watching TV, or whatever the case may be, you may not hear a siren.”
Using the sirens, which the public tends to associate with tsunamis, could also “send the wrong message to the public,” Andaya said.
“What do you do if a siren sounds? You’d think, oh, I need to go mauka, which is where we don’t want them to go to,” he said, given that the flames and winds were moving from the mountainside toward the ocean.
According to Andaya, the most effective means of sending out an emergency notification, in this case, was a Wireless Emergency Alert, or WEA, and the Emergency Alert System, or EAS. Evacuation notices were pushed out through both, he said, although he couldn’t remember at what times.
The WEA system sends sound and text warnings to compatible cell phones. The EAS blares warnings via broadcasters on TV and radio. But the systems rely on cell towers and electricity, respectively. If those are out, the message won’t be delivered.
“We didn’t even know that the power was necessarily down,” he said. “We do know that there were people who did receive the alert and notifications. We do know that many people were able to evacuate as a result.”
Some cell towers have backup generators, so Andaya said he believed they were still operational.
The county also sent what’s called MEMA alerts through a county system that sends emails, delivers text messages and calls landlines, Andaya said.
“We just followed what we normally do, which is we put out a WEA and EAS,” he said. “If you check the other Hawaii jurisdictions throughout the state, none to my knowledge has used sirens for fires.”
Andaya was on Oahu last Tuesday when the fire took over Lahaina. In his absence, Paul Coe, MEMA’s plans and operations officer, was in charge, Andaya said.
Coe has worked for MEMA since 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile. Previously he spent more than two decades with the fire department in Tucson, Arizona, ending his career there as a captain. He has a degree in fire services administration from Arizona State University, his profile says.
Asked if he or his agency would do anything differently, Andaya said no.
“We used the best system there was,” he said. “We feel with the resources we had available, this is the best response we could’ve done.”
At a press conference on Wednesday, both Andaya and Gov. Josh Green declined to say whether sirens would be considered for fires in the future. Both said agencies will be reviewing their practices in light of the Lahaina catastrophe. Green noted when he first moved to Hawaii, people told him the sirens signified tsunamis.
“We will find best practices, and give updated information,” Green said. “There are going to be a lot of large changes that we hope to do.”
Those changes will likely include moving power lines underground and increasing the state’s satellite capacity, the governor said.
Probably written by an AI system bot.
They have to move among other people, otherwise they turn on themselves.