 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. We're doing more on Maui. We're going to find out more from on the ground, from our correspondent, our host over there, who lives there, Mahila Stoops. Welcome back to your show, Mahila. Thank you for having me on the show today. I'm able to actually show my face, as you can see. And I think I want to start by saying that I have an amazing sense of calm and hope for what's happening. It feels like there's a significant difference between what was available and what was working yesterday and what's available and what works today. And it's almost like you were looking at miracles happening overnight in terms of what people can accomplish. Yesterday I said I, particularly, I feel abandoned by county officials and I want to be more precise. And I want to say that our council member here in West Maui, Tamara Poulton, she has accomplished a lot for us starting, you know, before, during and after the fire. And so I do want to acknowledge that. And I also want to acknowledge the councilwoman from Molokai that has coordinated a lot of support efforts and I'm not sure about the other council members. But I do want to mention these two. It feels like the federal, the state and the county presence now, it is obvious. It is working. They're doing a lot of things to help this community run. And we're finally seeing progress in my opinion. Things are, things are, we still have a long way. There's a lot of things to do, but it finally feels like things are getting better. Well, Mahayla, can you drill down on that? Can you tell us about what they're doing and the miracles that are happening even from day to day? Can you give us some examples? Yeah, so, you know, the first problem that we've had here, and I think that's the root of a lot of problems was communication. Being unable to communicate to people outside of West Maui created a lot of issues in terms of coordinating relief efforts. You know, even helping each other was very difficult because you couldn't, you know, I'm picking 10 pellets of water. I'm bringing them where over there, but the conversation gets truncated and it's like, where was it the Mala ramp? Was it, you know, Kahana ramp? Kahana ramp, Mala ramp is not usable anymore, but anyhow, I'm giving an example of how difficult communication has been just from a technology point of view. And then in addition to that, we're all distressed and it's hard to communicate efficiently when you're distressed and I, that includes myself. And, you know, so everything is harder to coordinate and harder to solve and so on because we're all traumatized en masse. Well, yesterday, we didn't, we didn't have any broadband with you and so we better talk on your satellite phone, but today you have broadband, you're on your computer, what happened? Well, so I am, I have had this available at my house, but what's happened since yesterday, a lot of Starlink locations have been made available. Hubs for, that put out internet and there's more coming. I am aware of major efforts by, you know, privateer space company that is actually headquartered in Kihei, has been headquartered in Kihei to set up these Starlink, they could, it's basically a device that can allow 200 people to use it, to use it at the same time. And so more of these are being deployed, they're here, they're installed, you know, they require tech. It's not something you just place and you turn on and off. It's, you know, it takes time, but those are being made available and I think it's going to get even better soon with once we have everything we need. I was told that I believe it's federal disaster management. I don't know the name of the entity, but it's a federal effort to put in cellular on wheels. It's like these big, you know, towers that would allow cell and internet service that I think a lot of the distress in the first two days were coming from the lack of communication not being able to know who's alive. Where are they? What can we do for them? And you can imagine 30,000 tourists, last locals, trying to figure out what to do. And being unable to find out where to go for shelter, where to eat, where to, you name it, you know, it's, it's, yeah. So that's the, the, we already have power, I believe just about everywhere from basically kind of poly to North to Kapalua, so power is not an issue. When you say that, you're speaking about West Maui, but as we discussed before the show, in the absence of news and you don't really have time to watch the news, you really don't know about the rest of the island, am I right? No. No, so if there's an update for me, just give, is there a power outage somewhere on island right now? I don't know. No. But there is power in West Maui, just about everywhere. And, you know, which obviously allows for other things to happen. You know, people can turn on the TV, they may connect to see something on the news, they, you know, they can cook a hot meal. We're, I want to share with you that the local businesses have been absolutely amazing in providing for us. All the restaurants in West Maui have contributed in a phenomenal way, feeding all of us hot meals and there is an organization and I'm apologizing right now because I think it's world kitchen, something like that, that is also preparing chef quality meals that are brought to us and we could just go grab a hot meal and go back to work rather than figure out what you eat, wash your dishes and all that kind of stuff. There are efforts in place to improve access to medical. My, you know, my biggest complaint yesterday was about the restrictions to travel from West Maui to Kahlui, which is the central area of Maui, a hub for everything that we usually need. I understand one good update that I know of as right now is that if one has a medical issue is will be allowed to come into West Maui through Malaya, rather than Kahlua, and that is very big. My first, I basically function as a dispatch, people call and say, I need this, I need this, I need this. Plus, I'm calling people that I know and checking I check on them to see how they're doing and, you know, are they in distress or not. The long story short, my first call this morning was, I'm a resident of Lahaina, I need to be in Kahlui to make for, I believe is treatment and testing in Kahlui. I could drive there, but I'm afraid to come back on the road through Kahlua. These were, I've never seen them, somebody else contacted me and asked me to help them out. They were elderly people and they said we cannot drive through Kahlua. Can you find us a driver that would meet us in Kahlui Thursday morning at 9am and drive our car back to our house in West Maui and then obviously that person find its way back to Kahlui. And while I'm, you know, trying to find somebody to do all this, an update came that the mayor is now allowing all people that are traveling for medical reasons to use that highway and come into West Maui, you know, on a road that is considered safe and uncomplicated. You know, Mahaila, there was an article in the paper that the placard system that you spoke about yesterday was terminated. So they are no longer imposing that requirement, am I right? It was terminated and I have to say it was terminated because it was not safe what was going on there. It was so mismanaged by the county, meaning not enough personnel showed up to process the placards. There was no way to control crowds. There was no water, no tents. It's hot outside. There was, they decided that this distribution center should be Napili Park, which is essentially the entrance to a cul-de-sac. There was no control of traffic. It was unsafe and you already have people that are very traumatized. You can't put them in harm's way again. I think it was a very wise decision that was made right away. Cancel the darn thing, pardon my language, send everybody to whatever they wanted to do next on their agenda and figure out something else. And, you know, it doesn't make sense to me to hand out an orange paper to people. It's just that it would not be checked by a policeman. The policeman would just see that there's a orange paper in the windshield. And yesterday that, you know, you volunteered, starting right after the fires, and you've been volunteering every day. This would be the seventh or eighth day already. And I guess my question is how has that changed? Are you doing the same things today that you did yesterday and before? No. Who is directing you? Who is saying to you, Mahela, you should do this and not that? Who is supervising you, Mahela? Right. So the first two days what I had to do was find people, locate people. My people, my immediate people, they're all my people, but there's my immediate people and there's the friends and friends of my immediate people. And that was hectic. You know, you try and go find somebody through a group of 800 people spread over, I don't know how many acres of Maui Cret property. It was very difficult. So that's what I did the first two days. Checking on people, finding people. And at the same time providing whatever comfort. You know, here's hot food. Here's some coffee. Here I got some boiled eggs for somebody. That was the first two days. After the first two days, when it became very clear who lost what, and the first news was there's loss of life and loss of property. I am very fortunate that as of now, I don't know somebody directly, but this is going to hit us like a tsunami. When we're going to know who passed away. And we're going to be grieving for all of them. But the next two days we knew that building was burnt that building was burned the next two days. A lot of the communication on my end and what I did has essentially people. Does that still exist? Is it gone? All I said, it's gone, it's gone, it's gone. That was the next two days. And then communicating with the families that managed to evacuate to the other side of the island that I could communicate with. And basically support them emotionally for their loss of their home, their business, their kids school, their retirement investment or source of retirement. So that's what I did then. From there, we had to move into how can we help these people. And, you know, because I am a real estate agent, it's intuitive that I would try to figure out housing. So that's what, so there was two kinds of housing needs. Short term. So let's put them off somewhere for a month. Let's figure out a place where they could be that they could grieve. They could, you know, search there for their family from that that's why communication was so important. That they could communicate, you know, like they could use a phone to call somebody or something. And that was pretty difficult still through day three and four. So, now I'm moving in more into long term housing and that's a, it has two other components. The kids have to be in school, we need to get schools started and functional ASAP. This is my next big miracle that needs to happen. This happened for everybody that wants to be in West Maui and wants to stay. The reason for this one is kids are traumatized. Secondly, parents need a break. They need to process and it's hard to do this when, you know, you have to cover the needs of your child. They need a that they may have. And also, a lot of people in the wider community need to go to work and make money. This is the reality of it. What I got next was a flood of inquiries. How am I going to make my mortgage payment? Am I going to get a paycheck on Friday? And I know there are many employers and business people that are working very hard to help their employees, you know, who are some sort of financial assistance and they probably already helped them find a place to be and live and all this. So, this is what I'm focusing on right now. Schools as many as possible and housing as much as we can get and work for the people that are here so that it keeps going. Let me give you a very simple example. We can't go to the bank right now. There's no bank. Right. There's no more money in the ATM. There's no more cash to get out, but we have these needs. And like, who's in the bank right now working who's I'm sorry who's going to come work for the bank. I heard that bank manager from Bank of Hawaii downtown had to save her life and jump in the ocean. And she made it. So, so these people are not going to be able to come to work. The rest of us are having a hard time. Well, you know, we've heard we've heard that, you know, was it Jeff Bezos was going to give $100 million. People have been sending money on the GoFundMe website. In addition to food, clothing, blankets, what have you. Do you see any indication of that money? And of course, Joe Biden and his wife Jill are coming here. I'm not sure when exactly but soon. And presumably, you know, FEMA has money. The federal government is supposed to treat this as an emergency. And the state the same. Where is that money? Is that that being distributed in some way to people who don't have money? Where is it going? It's trickling in. It's not a fast process, but I know there are very many efforts in place to disperse funds to help people kind of similar to I don't know what the state has prepared yet or federal but I know there have been various entities that, you know, have disaster funds and they're willing to, you know, fund people for various things. I'm getting calls from some for some of the evacuees or some of the victims that are dealing with their insurance and they're getting some payments and they're getting coverage for some of their expenses or sometimes they're not getting everything because they didn't have the right kind of insurance or maybe because insurance companies may be a little difficult. But I think, you know, it is one step at a time, but it's also a long vision. We want to, for West Maui and Lahaina to strive and to be the town that everybody wanted to see and be part of and it's going to take a while to get there, but we're, I'm very hopeful where we're getting there and some of these things happen fast and some of them not so fast. What are the greatest threats where things are not cannot be will not be delivered quick enough and where you have to work harder to get people, you know, service. I really want the mayor to reconsider this plan of accessing West Maui. I think it's a bad plan. I think that people have to be able to come and go on a safe road. That's that's my, my biggest issue. I want people to be able to be safe, and also to have access to service providers. The community has been fantastic. I've text from electricians and plumbers that are willing to do pro bono work and come here and prepare housing inventory for rentals and These are people from Oahu or people from Maui. From Maui, but they can't come through. That's a problem. Yeah, and I understand the concern that, you know, there may be some bad actors and they, you know, may do the wrong thing, but by now, I, we have enough, you know, FEMA and state and federal and National Guard and all these, all these people are here. They all they have to do is just whatever your concern that is protected better. That's all there is to it. Well, we've seen photographs of, you know, of police and FEMA National Guard, you know, protecting people's homes was left to the mental about. But there's another issue too we've heard about and that's, you know, predators predators are out there trying to buy land sheep. Predators who are out there to do scams on people in the name of helping them. Have you seen any of that. So, you know, as a real estate agent, I have a pulse on this and we are, I know our realtors association condemns any efforts to take advantage of the situation. I know numerous brokerages have paused all real estate activities for at least 30 days. I know that what's happening now and I'm going to give an example of how I function. When somebody comes to me and they say, you know, I want a three bedroom house. I input their information in the MLS. And when such a listing come appears on the market, then they get a notification and it looks like I'm trying to sell that to them, right. Well, one thing that I didn't foresee is that, or I didn't think of is that these notifications are still in place. So someone still receive an email, even if I'm not conducting any business, and we're looking into how to turn this off all these. All these notifications, I know that there are call centers from the mainland that are calling people like they used to do before COVID, not. I'm sorry before the fire. It's like, hey, you know, I think your house is worth this. Do you want to sell it? I have an agent that could help you. This, this happened before the fire, and nobody's turned that off yet. So people are getting these calls. They assume it's from a realtor, I would assume the same thing but it's actually a call center somewhere in, I don't know where. So what we've instructed everybody is when you get such a call, take their name and number, actually just name and license number, that was the request, name a license number, and we'll go after that. I mean, we as a trade association, we don't want these people among us. Okay, we got to protect them because, you know, people are very vulnerable after a tragedy like this in so many ways. The other thing I was going to ask you is, you know, so I wake up in Oahu. It's a beautiful day today. And the buildings around me that were here a few days ago are still here. You know, my environment, my world is unaffected by what happened in Maui. I recognize that it will be affected. The economy of the whole state will be affected by losing one of our major islands this way for an indeterminate period. I wonder from the gestalt of it how it is for you. And if you, I imagine, this is my imagination. It's quiet. It's not that much happening. It's not that many aside from, you know, the volunteer situation that you find yourself in, not that much going on. The weather is good. It's almost as if it's sort of this bizarre transformation from a vital, vibrant, green, active place and community to something where everything around you is dead. And it must be weird. And the weather is probably just great, but it's really quiet. What's your gestalt feeling about that as it exists, as it is happening on Maui? Well, so I tell you what everybody that I know is doing, waking up every morning after who knows how many hours of sleep, but not many. And you're like dispatch. And you get to a point where you say, okay, I need to take my kid to the beach. Or do something for my kid and that's going to be my break. And then back to it. So it is, and it's very healing to help your community. I get so energized and it keeps me going to be in touch with everybody and see how I can help and how I can connect them. And I don't, I can't being at home and not doing something and I know a lot of the people feel the same. They want to do something. They want to do it as soon as possible. You talk about the community, you talk about people helping each other. It strikes me that when you go out into the, into the shelter with 800 people around and lots of people who are working alongside or responding to you, you are meeting people that maybe you didn't know before. And now you have not only relation, you know, the sort of the, the enhancement of relations you had before you have brand new friends brand new people that you didn't know before what's that like. Yeah, you, you agree with them, you asked them what they lost. This is the first question. The first question is how are you doing. And they'll be. I'm okay. Or a very a certain degree of crying to I'm okay. That's the answer. And I am even for myself when they are you okay, I'm saying, I'm coping. That's what I'm doing. I'm coping. When you see them again, will you have relationships going forward, and they become part of this very special recovery community that you've been describing. I think we, we become an even tighter community by helping each other. It's, it's the most amazing example of humanity. If you come here to the West side, and your foot on the ground, and you see what's happening. You're going to have a lot of faith in people and I have faith in all of our officials as well. I just think that they are not aware of the details of how we function by making decisions like you drive through Kahakulowa. Well, they've never driven it, but they're making that decision for us. You gather at Napili Park, 400 people. I don't know, they didn't look on a map, they probably haven't been here to see, wait a second, where are these people going to park, they're going to park on the other side of the street, they're going to cross the highway, right. So I have a lot of confidence in these officials, in their humanity, if they have the knowledge. Well, they got to be listening, they got to be watching, they got to be engaging the way you are. This is a learning experience, not only for you and the other volunteers. It's a learning experience for the entire community, the entire society and Maui, and it should be a learning experience for the whole state and maybe anybody watching the state. So this is quite an experience, really remarkable. Thank you for sharing with us, Mahila. We'll circle back with you in a few days, if you don't mind, and find out how it's going, because I don't think we should forget Maui for one second. We should always have Maui on our minds. Thank you so much. Thank you and we appreciate all the love and the support. We really do and we feel it, we feel the love.