Lahaina’s recovery plan calls for measures to improve emergency response

When an investigation by a fire research firm found “no evidence” that Hawai’i officials had prepared for last year’s devastating wildfires on Maui despite days of weather warnings, Attorney General Anne Lopez said it was a “wake-up call.”

Maui County has not talked much publicly about the shortcomings of its preparation, with many lawsuits in the works after the death of at least 102 people and billions in property damage. But its newly released long-term recovery plan for Lahaina calls for several measures that would improve its emergency response, including in areas of staffing, technology, communication and evacuation routes. 

These measures follow the report that discovered emergency officials did not take precautionary action such as having extra staff on duty or planning for possible evacuations even though they knew for days that critical fire weather was approaching.

When the bad weather arrived, as warned, downed power and cell service made it tough for people to contact loved ones or get critical updates. Blocked-off roads, some obstructed by fallen trees and power lines, and the fast-moving blaze trapped people on narrow streets and forced some to flee on foot.

“While we cannot speak to the agency’s response in 2023, which is before many of our staff members came onboard, including myself, I can share that our focus is on enhancing unified command efforts to facilitate real-time information sharing,” Maui Emergency Management Agency Administrator Amos Lonokailua-Hewett said via email on Friday. “This approach enables expedited alerts, warnings and public messaging.”

Lonokailua-Hewett is a former Maui Fire Department battalion chief from Lahaina who’s been in charge of the county’s emergency management since Jan. 1. Former MEMA Administrator Herman Andaya stepped down after the fire following heavy criticism for not sounding warning sirens in Lahaina and for being at a conference on O‘ahu instead of in Maui’s Emergency Operations Center coordinating the response to the island’s four fires in Lahaina, Kula, Olinda and Pūlehu. 

A mid-term project in the long-term recovery plan is the MEMA Advancement Program, which calls for upgrading emergency services infrastructure, increasing on-call staffing, evaluating shelters across the county and improving community engagement. It is estimated to cost $168,750 and take 3 to 5 years to complete

The project would hire paid, on-call MEMA reserve staff as well as unpaid, on-call volunteers to help the Incident Management Team that’s activated during emergencies. Lonokailua-Hewett said the team can range from as few as five personnel to several hundred during a 12-hour operational period. 

“Our goal is to establish a roster robust enough to sustain multiple operational periods while ensuring adequate rest/work cycles for team members,” he said. “It’s likely that we will need hundreds of reserve and volunteer personnel to meet these demands of the collective County.”

Since the fire, MEMA has added 13 staff members, including in Hana and on Moloka‘i and Lāna‘i where it previously had no presence, said Mayor Richard Bissen during a news conference on the one-year anniversary of the fire. The Maui County Council also budgeted for 29 more firefighters to improve surge capacity during emergencies.  

In addition to boosting staff, the recovery plan project also would upgrade emergency services infrastructure to help MEMA make decisions and inform the public. 

One possible program is Watch Duty, a platform used by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (also known as Cal Fire) that provides real-time wildfire alerts through an app that includes reports from fire crews, satellite and weather information, camera feeds and power outage updates. 

Another program is the Pacific Disaster Center’s DisasterAWARE platform, which offers early warning and monitoring of hazards through high-resolution impact models, artificial intelligence-enhanced analytics and “the largest scientifically vetted big data catalog for disaster decision-making.” The center is located in Kīhei and managed by the University of Hawai‘i. 

MEMA also is evaluating sites to install cameras through Avigilon, a security systems provider. Potential locations include rooftops at Lahaina Civic Center, Kalana O Maui Building in Wailuku, Hannibal Tavares Community Center in Pukalani, South Maui Gym in Kīhei, Lahaina Aquatics Pool, Kahului Service Center and the Kīhei Wastewater Treatment Facility. Additional sites include Waiehu Golf Course (overseeing areas from Waiehu to Wailuku), county property in Olowalu and Kula Malu Park.

But real-time updates would be undermined if the county loses power or signal. That’s why enhancing emergency communication networks is one of the short-term projects in the recovery plan. It calls for a series of facility upgrades and new installations to expand radio and cell capacity, close gaps in existing communication channels, and increase public warning. The cost is expected to exceed $30 million.

Lonokailua-Hewett said the county “strongly” encourages phone carriers and local broadcast radio stations to make their networks more resilient by establishing alternate routes into West Maui to maintain connectivity and ensuring backup power sources. 

Maui County is seeking funding to develop alternate routes for voice and data communications, but Lonokailua-Hewett said they can’t match the capabilities of phone carriers.

However, the county is looking into installing permanent low-power AM motorist information stations that would “continuously broadcast crucial information about restricted zones, upcoming zone openings for residents, details on obtaining access permits, and general safety guidelines within restricted areas.”

Walter Pacheco, communications coordinator for the Maui Police Department, said the system would be similar to what national parks use. 

During an open house about the recovery plan last week, Pacheco said the biggest communications vulnerability the fire exposed was that the Lahaina area only has a single route for all information to come in and out.

“Phone lines, fiber optic cables, it all comes in one route, and that was destroyed early on in the fire,” he said. “We need to find other ways of making those types of connections. It won’t be as high capacity, but it’ll be something versus nothing.” 

Reliable signals also will be important for programs like Genasys Evac/Ladris, another platform that MEMA is considering. The website and mobile app provides updates on zones currently evacuating or on standby during an emergency.

Extending or connecting roads to improve evacuation access is another mid-term project in the recovery plan. The county would acquire land and improve roads in areas where streets don’t meet current fire codes, have substandard cul-de-sacs or are missing connections.

That includes connecting Papalaua to Aki Street, Kaakolu Street to the Lahaina Bypass, Kanakea Loop to Lahainaluna Road, Kuhua Street to Komo Mai and North Hakau Place to the bypass, as well as extending Dickenson Street. The total cost is expected to exceed $10 million.

The most expensive of the proposed road improvements is a $36 million extension of Kuhua Road, which currently runs into a dead-end. Maui police said that more than 40 of the people who died in the fire were in the Kuhua Camp neighborhood. Projects in the recovery plan would connect it to nearby Komo Mai Street as well as extend it along a new public roadway parallel to Honoapi‘ilani Highway and leading out of town all the way to Puamana.  

In recent fires like the one on Crater Road in Kula and in Piʻihana, Maui County officials have been more proactive in alerting the public about potential evacuations. At the news conference marking the one-year anniversary of the fire, Bissen said that’s because the county has more tools available to it to detect smoke and take action. 

“We are being more assertive in our notification to the public, and that’s intentional, and that will continue,” he said.