The Maui wildfires were some of the most destructive in American history, one of the worst in a century, eclipsing the devastating Camp Fire that tore through California in 2018. Over 100 people were killed in the island blaze, with at least 1,000 more still missing. The likely cause of the disaster was damaged power lines caused by high winds from a hurricane off the coast. Yet, the disaster response was also a shambles.
The alarm system was never triggered. Former Maui disaster chief Herman Andaya tried to explain that such a system might have caused people to flee into the mountains since it’s primarily used for tsunami warnings following earthquakes. Yet, he did Joe Biden a solid, defending his decisions by essentially saying that those who died wouldn’t have been saved anyway.