People trying to flee the Maui wildfires were left with only one way out after mistakes by local officials closed several roads, according to an investigation by the BBC.
Access to the main highway in the town of Lahaina was cut off and police directed people to a single escape route to the south — a road that runs along the ocean, where traffic was at a standstill during the peak of the blaze, the broadcaster revealed.
At least 99 people were killed in the August wildfire, which was the deadliest in modern US history.
The two main roads run mostly perpendicular to each other with a residential area in between, while Lahainaluna Road cuts across that town and connects it to both roadways.
On the afternoon of Aug. 8, those trying to flee the flames by taking Lahainaluna Road found their path to two key southern escape routes — the Honoapiʻilani Highway and the Lahaina Bypass — blocked.
Police body camera footage showed stationary traffic on Lahainaluna Road, leaving even officers baffled.
“We’ve got to move these cars! Why are the cars not moving?” said one officer on Lahainaluna Road.
Some of those who managed to escape did so by bypassing the highway blockade.
Shortly after the blaze broke out, the fire department closed the Lahiana Bypass, effectively making Front Street, which runs along the shore, the only way out.
Police directed people to the road, which had become a “parking lot” and later a disaster zone of incinerated cars in which some victims became trapped, while others were forced to flee into the ocean.
An intersection to the north was also blocked.
Police told the BBC the closures were due to downed power lines — but even some officers at the time didn’t know that.
“We need to go down there, because they don’t know what the [expletive] they’re doing,” one of them said. “They don’t understand,” another officer said.
Maui Electric, however, said the power was turned off and lines were not energized by the time people evacuated — and that the company communicated the information to police throughout the day, even providing the BBC with audio of the company’s communications with police.
“Without clear and definitive confirmation that its downed power lines were not energized, Maui’s police officers took reasonable precautions to avoid sending evacuees into potentially electrified lines,” the department told the BBC.
Hawaiian Electric has taken responsibility for one of its power lines starting a fire earlier that day, but faults the fire department for being unable to control the blaze that broke out later in the afternoon and gutted the town.
Kekoa Lansford, who sold coconuts on Front Street and tried to help people escape, feels officials contributed to the casualties by closing some roads. His great-uncle was killed trying to escape.
“He was a good guy, who got trapped in a traffic jam, tried to go around it and got stuck in a fire. Died,” he told the BBC. “What should have happened is the roads should have been open.”
Maui Mayor Richard Bissen had admitted the town was not prepared for the disaster.
An extensive system of emergency sirens were never activated and the county lacked a widely known evacuation plan.
“We all should take responsibility,” Bissen said. “All of us.”
with Post wires