 today about what's happening in Maui from one of our hosts who lives there. She's a resident of West Maui and she's a volunteer for the recovery of Mary Maui, no small task. She's Mahila Stoops. Welcome to the show, Mahila. Thank you for taking the time out from your volunteer work to talk to us about what's going on on the ground in Maui. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I feel that the rest of the community outside of West Maui needs to know what is happening here because the lack of communication due to lack of phone services and internet may have allowed miscommunications altogether. I feel I and many others that live here and work here and been here for a long time and love this community, we feel the love from the community and all of you outside of it that have been so generous with donations in many ways and worried about our shelter and about water and supplies and so many other things and money and you know it's what keeps us going, the love that is coming from all of you but at the same time what we feel is that we've been abandoned by our county, our state and our federal government and when I say abandoned I mean the lack of support primarily for the first two days after the fire. I would give anything to know what any of these officials, top officials in county, state and federal were doing 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Well, let's talk about what happened on Wednesday morning at least as far as your concern and your family and community are concerned. What happened to you? You wake up to a fire. What was that like? I could tell you what happened was by 4 p.m. I've concluded myself that there was no phone service anywhere in West Maui and unless you lived off the grid like myself or you had a starlink or internet through satellites you had no phone service and no internet and did not know what was happening so you know basically wake up Wednesday morning and try and figure it out what is happening and you know by then I knew that there were the Maui Prep Academy has become the second evacuation shelter after the first one at Lahaina Civic Center has to be relocated due to the threat of fire and you know we come here to the health and realize that this is manned by the teachers and the principals and by parents and the teenagers and by staff and you know Red Cross was here for a portion of the time. They were undermined as well because they had to mend the Lahaina Civic Center. They did not have enough people either. It was people in distress visibly hurt physically. I'm talking about people that had burns and lacerations over their on their bodies. I'm talking about people that are visibly shocked covered in you know like I don't know what suits I guess and you had hundreds of these people we don't have an account yet or I don't have it but I'm sure that the school can provide it. I think it was somewhere between four and eight hundred people that day that the rest of the community had to care for and these are just the people that show us up at the shelter. There's many others that were you know taken in by anybody they you know had something to offer so these were just the stranded people that couldn't figure out where to go or when to take the shelter. The community organized itself we had I remember having receiving a very large donation from Feed My Sheep again not a county not a state not a federal entity and you know there was no expert in disaster management evacuation here to manage this. It was you know I came here with the thought the thought basically I came here and looked around and the minute I saw something somebody that I knew I was like my brain is cross-checking and said this guy is alive great and I knew that they had no way to communicate to the outside world or very very limited a way to communicate the outside world. I've tried to you know fall as many people as I could and connect as many people as I could from the ones I met at the shelter to call their family. I've taken names from people on Facebook and came back to the shelter and looked for them which was mission impossible because there were so many people and didn't know where to start. This is a large camp I mean it's a small school but it's a large campus and people were all over the place and everybody's doing something already every volunteer that is here is already doing something. So like I said we feel abandoned about for at least the first two days of the of this disaster. I do have to say what happened you went straight away to that school what was your intention of going there. Yeah I found out through the internet by then that the shelter has been relocated to Mali Prep and I knew that the vacuaries were here and of course I knew that they needed help I brought coffee I made them a pot of rice I get here there's still no power here I take another pot I go back home I make another pot I bring it in other people were doing the same thing we're bringing food here to the evacuees and you know trying to comfort the evacuees and settle them in and you know there are people making you know taking requests for for medications and I mean you just think of your day and the things that you need in your day at home and all of these have to be now provided for these people that have lost a lot or they literally ran for their life. So they must have been pretty upset when you met them and scared and traumatized did you describe you know what what people were talking about what they were saying to you when you went to help them. Shock it is shock most of these people are in shock it's you know they a lot of them are very gracious and they say I'm happy I have my life that's what they say I'm happy I have my life and and then you know you ask about what they've lost we don't even know all the people that we've lost right at this point we know who's alive we have a lot of missing people we know there's a lot of people and we know what property we've lost and each and every person here is grieving it's a mass grieving every second of the day for every day you come and walk around here you talk to any of the people in the community and it's mass crying on and on and you know it's we're it's it's not like in your lifetime you know you're probably we're in my lifetime I've gone to somebody's funeral and grieve for them well we're grieving for hundreds of people at the time people that we knew that we cannot find that are in shock because they lost everything some lost their homes some lost homes and business some lost you know savings because it may have been over the condo that they were renting out for to stay for retirement my own client lost their home that they're in their late 70s trying to sell it to retard the mainland for better healthcare it's gone and you were lucky though and and and that you were lucky you didn't lose your home am I right I am very lucky and I feel very privileged that I'm in a position to help others and I feel that the community has been so resilient and so creative in figuring out and supporting each other and I I do want to share with you the most recent failure of the county you know there's been a lot of discussion about people coming in and out of West Maui and why should people have access or why should pay they have shouldn't they have access well the planet our county came up with is for all of us that and you know I realized some of the those listening to the show may not be familiar with the geography of Maui but essentially you could leave us on the highway going towards Malaya but to come back you have to come to the very famous treacherous road road of Kahakuloa which is a one lane road on the side of the cliff this is the same road that if one rents a car the rental agreement specifically say says you're not supposed to go there okay so I just got off the phone with friends again in their 70s they went to Kahakuloa to get medication came to Kahakuloa they are scared to death after driving that and this is what our county wants us to do they to take this road all of us also I would like to mention that this treacherous road there's one layer on the side of the cliff there are several communities that the community of Honokahau and Kahakuloa itself these people are located closer to Wailuku and they would be using in a normal time they would be using this road to go to Kahului against the traffic coming that the county is proposing to do for people to come back into Lahaina so you have hundreds of people that live in Kahakuloa and Honokahau that basically you're telling them now okay so around me what would have been for you a 15-minute ride you know fairly safe you now have to take an hour and 15 minutes why did the county do that well you have to ask them we have a bypass that we have a road to Malaya and Kahului which we call highway that is functional there is no damage to it there's it's drivable they've let people I guess if they can let people drive on it one direction why couldn't they not let them drive the other direction yeah so let me also share with you what besides the fact that you know okay we're going to do this we're going to do it your way we're going to drive your we're going to put our lives in danger and we're going to drive the way you want us to drive well to be able to do this you have to obtain a placard and you had to show up this morning either at Napili Park which has been a hub for donations and support or you could go to Wailuku if you are on the other side well let me tell you hundreds of people showed up at the park this morning to get their placard the county people have showed up with no plans to crowd control there's no plan to there was no no way to designate lines I think at one point the cops starting directing traffic they had they were just parking on the site on both sides of the highway and then crossing the highway to get to the park and get the famous placard and let me tell you what the placard looked like because some of you may wonder okay what is the placard it's a piece of paper that it is orange in color that apparently has some information and it has the signature of a policeman I mean I think an age grader can produce that put it in there give it to the to the parents to put it in their windshield and go by I mean go get to a checking point because the checkpoint the the point of the placard was the speed of traffic and the policeman would have looked for something orange and that's it not read the placard are there policemen out and about are there policemen actually helping are there are there military out and about are there people from FEMA out and about have you met them you're at the hub of activity you know north of behind a West Maui and I wonder if you've seen representatives of the you know the county the police the state the federal government the military people they should be they should be there with you right they should be everywhere this is my point you know I live 12 miles north of Lahaina I have made it except for day two where I ventured all the way to Kanapali the remaining of the time I have not made it past Napili towards Lahaina so I understand that Lahaina there's a concentration of national guards and FEMA and you name it because you know it's a it's an area that they you know by now they're looking for bodies and but from so I don't I can only relate what what I see here Napili to Kanapali at the most I want to tell you the first two days speaking of support we're again I want to stress for everybody imagine you don't have a phone you don't have any power you don't have access to any information unless somebody comes and give it give this to you right and the you're you're what were you trying to do is okay where is my co-worker where is my friend where is my uncle where is my parents you name it where is my employee and the roads were crazy there were a lot of car accidents because all the traffic lights are off and uh people don't know how to navigate an intersection and I personally was afraid to make it to try and go back out and you know do my rounds and check on people and I have a lot of elderly people that I know and they were just disconnected and families are calling from the mainland and want to know how they are and it was tragic well sounds like you know it's a complete wasteland in other words no water no power um no sewage well um no uh no food I mean where are they sleeping so as of now the first two days there was you know there was water but there was no um but of course we didn't know how good the water was um there was no um what you call it uh electricity and no phones no internet those are the first two days and um I also want to to point out something else and I promise I will say something good about the county as well I'm not just going to say the bad stuff but on the bad stuff list there was uh water um um warning like don't drink the water it may contain blah blah blah and so on well not all the fights are or not all the not all the subdivisions are serviced by a county watch and it created a lot of panic among people and I'm getting questions from all these people is the water you know uh this look at the subdivision is it county or not because there was some and forgive me I'm not a water expert but there was uh I guess assumption that the the pipes that came from Lahaina to Lahaina that are county water so that water um it uh was not safe to use whatsoever so all they had to do is you know I don't think it takes five days to figure out how good the water is but um I do want to say again I want to say something positive and I do applaud uh all the officials that managed to evacuate all the tourists um they have done it pretty quickly um I think by day two there's hardly any tourists here by the end of day two this is a good thing because if the tourists had not been evacuated um you would have to take care of them too am I right well here's the classic story that I mean that's a lot of us experience we're uh I'm driving um going to my friend in Kapalua and uh I see these people they're in a daze they're like what what are we doing and they said well uh they just it was Tuesday still and uh before before the fire they just made it to Lahaina from the airport and I said we we need to go get something to eat we we got nothing and I said well you know everything is closed don't go to Lahaina for sure and all the businesses are closed just go to your condo and whatever I said you don't have a bar or a cereal bar or anything they're like no no I said okay just head to the first restaurant nearby I I directed them I think because I think at that point somebody um or maybe I'm mixing up the days but I I gave them direct I didn't have anything in my car myself and I didn't know where they were staying so I couldn't feed them but um that that you can imagine tens of thousands of tourists doing this in a daze well you know yeah I figure out what to do end up panic this raises the question of you know who is speaking to you who is speaking to the others uh who have lost their homes don't know where to go who is speaking to the people who are walking the streets dazed and traumatized um is there any communication going on we know that a number of public officials have made statements to the media statements to the national media if not the global media but query has anybody come around and said mahala uh we'll be there we're going to do this that and the other thing we're going to help has anybody come around and giving you comfort what I see is fellow community members working as much as I am or even harder trying to figure it all out we are figuring out housing we are figuring out um bullying behind aluna and behind intermediates put out a word school is not closing find the school on the other side this is their solution and I have a very simple question and fear actually who's going to be here to rebuild this I I I'm dedicated to this community I'm not going anywhere I want to see it again I I want to I think it's a privilege that we have now to make sure that the history of lahaina stays and that it's not just a burn site of you know I don't know what it's going to be but I feel like I have a duty to to preserve its memory in and I have to stay here and rebuild it and who's going to do that if you're sending you telling everybody go away that's what the county is telling people you know I understand lahaina luna school and lahaina intermediate may not have power think of solutions find the hotel courtroom find the civics I don't know the civics center it's like these people have no imagination they and you know I I I do have to say a lot of it is due to the fact that they don't know what's happening here well then they didn't care what what was happening here because if they cared Wednesday 6am there should have been dogs here looking for people there should have been cellular on wheels on wheels you know those big towers they would have been starlings all over the place I mean I have to tell them what to do well you know so here we have a waste plan we have the county as a civil society you know is is stopped its economy is stopped its essential services is are stopped and you've been there you've been volunteering since last Wednesday and I wonder how do you see this unfolding are there steps being taken to get back to normal are we are we making any progress and recreating Maui what's the situation well I everybody wants to get it we can just sit at home and grieve you know and I have to say this maybe the mayor is grieving now we've been grieving since Tuesday yeah and you know the community has to get going and the other problem that we have okay they figured out a route which is I talked about that already I'm not going to talk about it but let me tell you who can come to West Maui well you can have West Maui residents you can have volunteers you can have relief personnel and medical and so on but this community that has I believe approximately 12,000 residents had 50,000 people at any on any given day part of them tourists part of them service providers so if you need an electrician right now because you know you're say I'm willing to donate my condo to let somebody stay in it but somebody has to go wire the lights in the bathroom well which electrician can come do that because the electricians that are here they're very few and guess what they may have lost their home or they know somebody that lost their home or as we're going to find out pretty soon they've lost a dear one so these people I mean I'm talking about my grief these their grief is exponentially higher and are they going to be available to service this community to put it back together no you've got to let service providers from the rest of the island come here and help us I wanted to ask you about that my highlight so we know that the tourists for the most part have left at the urging of the county I guess and we know that some people who have lived in Maui or residents of Maui have left they don't have any way to survive there so to the extent they could leave they left what we don't know is who's coming back who the electricians the doctors the providers of one kind of thing or another the plumbers are they coming back the babysitters the child care providers you know what I'm concerned most right now and what I'm focusing all my efforts now are two things housing putting people in houses and the second one is helping in every way possible to put as many kids in the schools that are still available which are which is Maui prep that can only take so many kids because of the size of the campus the number of classrooms and only so many kids because also the number of the teachers that would be available here in uh West Maui and Kapaloa preschool that you know I think I don't prior to this disaster they would have accommodated maybe uh you know 30 kids but what about the kids who were traumatized you mentioned that earlier yeah some of these kids you know stood at risk of losing their lives or they knew people they know people who did lose their lives they they've been through a really really really bad traumatic experience who is who is helping them who is talking to them who is helping them deal with that nobody nobody I I want to I want you all to imagine uh parents in their car with kids driving to flames and kids screaming I'm going to die and we've seen footage of that the other thing that springs out of what what you was saying I know you know something about this being a Maui resident is that Maui has had a pretty a pretty impacted bureaucracy over the years and if you want to get a building permanent if you in the past if you wanted to get a building permanent in Maui it was a problem but now a lot of people have hundreds thousands people have lost their homes and if they stay in Maui and a lot of them feel the way you do they they want to stay in Maui they want to rebuild the friend of mine has this experience right now he lost his home it burned up thank goodness he was not injured but the point is that you you have to get the insurance money assuming you have insurance you have to get a design professional to help you design a new house you have to um you have to get the permits which is you know Maui's famous for that for not providing prompt permits um and um ultimately you have to get a contractor and everybody is online for these things it's not like they're waiting for you to help you because there's thousands of people who are lining up to do exactly what you want to do any talk about that no and you know I have to say uh Jay you probably and our viewers have watched more more um press releases or news conferences from the governor governor or the mayor than I have because I've watched zero and frankly at this point I don't know I don't need to watch what they're saying I see it I see it more than I've seen it more than they have and there's nothing for me to learn from them so I have no idea what their plan is um I know that we're um as a real estate agent myself we are the realtor association of Maui has created a website to uh match people for housing um they I'm I was told for by one of my friends that it's already working that their match was made um I know the realtor association of Maui is working to put like together like a list of providers for the community for uh how to handle uh you know call FEMA how to apply for relief uh how to deal how to you know what do you do your mortgages still do what do you do about that oh your house is burned but your mortgages do you or you know uh you don't have a job for the foreseeable future your mortgages do so you know the the your business is gone you used to employ people some of them may be on the west side yeah when you look down the road here from where you stand where you have stood for the past several days and see you know that the society collapsed uh and their aftermath the kind of chaos uh where do you see Maui going do you have a vision of how this is all going to unfold how how these people in the school are going to do how the kids are going to do how the economy is going to do um how the jobs are going to do and what what's your expectation on this my highlight this is not easy i know you you know it's hard to face this but i wonder if you have thoughts about it i have so much faith in the community and the people that surround me for the past almost seven days all i've seen all i've seen is care and compassion and willingness to serve in any capacity you know i'm not going to sell real estate but you know i could do bookkeeping i could deliver food i i have other skills and this is what i'm telling all these other people that are so uh distressed over the loss of uh of jobs um i'm i'm telling them listen you still have skills and we need to build up this community you'll be needed so you know you will have a job it's not going to be the same but no it's true but what have you learned about the community in Maui you said you know they're strong and they they help each other that is a social interaction and support let me let me give you some examples of and i i want to ask forgiveness for not mentioning all of them because that would be impossible because there's hundreds of acts of kindness and dedication going on every day since tuesday you know people saving other people from their houses people notifying people to evacuate because the police couldn't keep up people directing traffic for other people uh you know one of the um uh paul brown who is pretty known in the community i was told he was standing in the middle of the road buyers are coming people are blocked they can't exit Lahaina and he is out in the street directing traffic so people can move on people getting out of their car and cars and getting um um and cutting trees and pushing trees and opening gates in in an effort to facilitate exits out of Lahaina uh i had uh you know i think i mentioned to you a little earlier today of you know the the principal the head of school at Maui Prep the parents the staff the teachers they've been here volunteering at the shelter manning the shelter i you know i've seen Betty Sakamoto i mean i don't want to disclose her age but you guys can figure it out uh and her husband Roy have stood out in the street handing out water in sunburn you have a background that is um that is the sort of global um you grew up in europe as i recall uh and you've been through some tough times in europe for that matter and um now now you're faced with this and it's not only the last seven days it's the next seven days and the next several months yeah and the next seven months yeah so i'm i'm wondering you know how this law works for you obviously you you immediately at a knee jerk basis you got out there and became a volunteer and a perfect altruist um and helped in every way you could for these several days how you're going to continue to do that and and my final question to you my my highlight is um what what exactly have you learned about yourself being in this crazy chaotic situation so i cannot say it enough i have a lot of faith in this community that we are going to get through this we're going to mourn everything that we i should say everybody that we lost and everything that we lost and we're going to get ourselves back together and keep it going i have absolute faith in this and um i've i've seen it at work i you know it it's so encouraging to see all these people helping each other it's i i have a lot of faith in humanity and i know that if the county state federal officials had more information i i i believe in their humanity as well i can't believe i don't believe that they could treat it this way when we call the county line and we asked the person that answered the calls about traffic into and out of lahaina if they've ever driven the road to kaha kuloa do you know what they said they have never done it but this is what the county was advising people to do every day you know people on the other islands i mean there's benefits and detriments being an island state people on the other islands you know that you see the political officials making comments and trying to inform everyone about what they see is happening so um but the truth is um that um they're not up close to it the way you are uh they're not looking it right in the eye the way you are and others in maui and uh they may feel well you know if it happens in maui doesn't have to be here what's your advice to them but this this is why we're having this discussion i have absolute faith that anybody that listens to this um discussion or views this discussion and understand the hurt that is here and they will i have faith that they will and they will make the right decision you need to be here and and understand what has happened and what's happening and make the decisions and try those proposed solutions yourself so let's assume they understand let's assume they hear you and they understand what you're saying now what what should they do what should they do on oahu and kawa and the big island what should they do um to help because you know to have maui you know uh you know stop this way turn to do a charred hulk this way it's like a hole in all of our hearts and so what should people on any other islands do i i so appreciate you know you're saying that it's like a hole in your heart um i i have to tell everybody we feel your love we do in many ways by everything the messages of encouragement the everything that you've done to acquire supplies at the shelters of um or facilities on other islands and ship them here people of molokai that stands supplies by boats uh people that have flown helicopters with supplies you know every effort that you've made uh every thought and prayer that you've said we feel it we feel it and we appreciate it i do want to say though that what we're going to need help with now is move towards recovery and that would mean access in and out of lahaina easily and uh for one for two putting kids in school so for any of those that are listening to this if you're wondering what to do uh look in your community if there is if there are any kids that are evacuated and there are many you just don't know but they are do something for them take them to the movie read a book for them um babysit them for half an hour so that the parents can close their eyes for and have a quiet moment um you know watch them at the pool anything that you could do for a kid that that's the first thing and the other thing that uh we're trying to to do primarily through mawiprep until you know any school facilities can be made available is raise as much money as possible so that we can fill the school we have all the kids that we're going to take in our distress and we're going to have to pay for their tuition to finance the tuition the functioning of the school not for one year you can't bring up a kid to a school for one year and then tell him oh no you could move somewhere else because there's no more money so um i i don't know if i'm allowed to you tell me if i'm allowed to be specific on how to do this uh where to donate or not but uh that that's something to do yeah um you you can be specific if you have any specific suggestions make them so i i do um please visit mawiprep.org and that's uh school website there is a link for financial aid you go in there and you donate any amount all the money is going into the big part to support people you know all the students that cannot pay and if you are an educator if you are somebody that has worked in the school system if you have ideas on how to create additional schooling for kids here in West Maui whatever in a commercial building that may be available of i i don't know any ideas we want you to help us figure it out you know we we yeah yeah that's that's the right thing we're open to any solutions to make it happen okay let me say mahal you know it's a really remarkable and wonderful that you are who you are and that and that you immediately began to volunteer and help people encourage other people to help people um but i would say this although you've had a very tough seven days your work is only beginning and that um hopefully you can participate in the effort to restore mawiprep it is and i do want to make it very clear i am not trying to put my horn i am not um um trying to say how great i am i am simply saying that if it came down to me to do it there's probably a problem and you asked me what i learned about myself it would everybody's learning is that they could do many things we all have to learn that lesson you you don't have to do heroic gestures you could just hold somebody's hand when they're crying about how much they've lost and that is yeah there's we don't need a big gesture thank you mahala mahala stoops a resident of west mawai helping us understand what is going on there i hope we can circle back not too just in future and talk with you some more mahala in any event thank you for coming on the show today thank you for taking the time aloha thank you all for the love