In the hours before a wildfire engulfed the Hawaiian town of Lahaina, Maui County officials failed to activate sirens that would have warned the entire population of the approaching.
In the hours before a wildfire engulfed the Hawaiian town of Lahaina, Maui County officials failed to activate sirens that would have warned the entire population of the approaching flames and instead relied on a series of sometimes confusing social-media posts that reached a much smaller audience. Power and cellular outages for residents further stymied communication efforts. Radio reports were scarce, some survivors reported, even as the blaze began to consume the town, per the AP. Roadblocks then forced fleeing drivers onto one narrow downtown street, creating a bottleneck that was quickly surrounded by flames on all sides. At least 80 people have been confirmed dead so far.
The silent sirens have raised questions about whether everything was done to alert the public in a state that possesses an elaborate emergency warning system for a variety of dangers, including wars, volcanoes, hurricanes, and wildfires. The AP created a timeline of the wildfires, using information from multiple sources, including the county’s announcements, state and local emergency alerts, and interviews with officials and survivors.
